Dem
51
GOP
49
As the campus protests spread, Joe Biden is striving mightily to stay above the fray, as best he can. When it comes to the protests themselves, he's dealing with a real Gordian knot. He doesn't want to be anti-free speech or anti-protest, but he also can't tolerate violence or bigotry. He doesn't want to be insensitive to the plight of the Palestinians, but he doesn't want to be insensitive to the plight of the Israelis, either. He has relatively little direct influence over campus governance, and the one tool he COULD use in the short-term, namely violent force, he does not want to use. That's more a Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) or a Mayor Eric Adams (D-NYC) thing (though it has now also become a UCLA thing, albeit over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-CA).
There was an incident yesterday that served to put the lose-lose nature of the President's situation into stark contrast. The University of Alabama has joined the ever-growing list of schools with ongoing showdowns between angry pro-Israel students and angry pro-Palestine students. And while the two sides there normally chant slogans in opposition to the other side, for a period of time yesterday, they came together as one to chant... "Fu** Joe Biden. Fu** Joe Biden. Fu** Joe Biden." The pro-Palestine side blames him for giving too much support to Israel, while the pro-Israel side blames him for giving too little support. And, in trying to steer a middle course, all he's doing is angering both sides.
As we have noted several times, graduation is imminent at most institutions (UCLA and Cal State Los Angeles being the main exceptions, as they are on the quarter system, and don't complete their school years until mid-June). Biden is going to hope and pray that the end of the school year calms things down a whole bunch, while also hoping and praying that current, very delicate, efforts to extract the remaining hostages in Hamas' control pay dividends. (Z)