April 7, 2024

When the Israel-Hamas war broke out six months ago, it represented the kind of global crisis that President Joe Biden told voters he is uniquely equipped to confront.

But as the U.S. struggled to prevent the conflict from spiraling into a humanitarian catastrophe, some of Biden’s close advisers and allies began worrying that rather than bolstering his image as an experienced global leader, the president’s steadfast support for Israel’s offensive risked further complicating his argument that the election is a choice between his competent moral clarity and former President Donald Trump’s chaos.

Those concerns have been echoed in a series of interviews and statements from prominent Democratic and Democratic-aligned senators, including Tim Kaine and Bernie Sanders, in recent days. And they have been an unstated undercurrent to the White House’s decision this past week to issue a stark threat to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu that U.S. support could evaporate without major changes following a strike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers.

Read more: