Today, I am thinking about the ripple effect of the war in Gaza. Some potential effects have been obvious from the beginning – the most obvious being the possibility that Iran will enter the war through the various organizations it supports in countries that border Israel, like Hezbollah. We see increased activity, but nothing yet that looks like a second front. Another possible effect would be seeing the UAE and other countries who have relations with Israel through the Abraham Accords backing away. We have not seen this yet, either. A third would be an uprising on the West Bank, where Hamas is quite strong – this has not occurred (just the opposite, we see radical Israeli settlers taking advantage of the attention on Gaza to frighten Palestinians from their villages). A fourth would be a revolt by Israeli Arabs within the Green Line; this has not happened and there seems to be no sign of it as a likely possibility. And there are others.

But in fact, ripple repercussions do exist – perhaps not those which we expected, but ones which are very important, none the less. Let’s look at two of them.

There has been a civil war going on in Yemen for some time now, as you know. The opposing sides are the Houtis, backed by Iran, and the Yemenite government, backed by Saudi Arabia. I guess there is some sort of a stalemate now, but it has been going on for almost a decade now. And, according to the United Nations, 150,000 have been killed through the end of 2022 in the war, and another 200,000+ have died from war related disease or famine.

We could talk about why the media gets so excited, as they should, about 20,000 in Gaza, but not about 350,000 in Yemen, but that’s for another day. For today, the problem is that the Houtis (i.e., Iran in disguise) have decided to send rockets and drones towards Israel from Yemen. Most have either been shot down or have landed somewhere in the Red Sea. The problem with this, of course, is that the Red Sea is a major oil route to the Suez Canal, and is filled with carriers flagged by a variety of countries and carrying oil from and to an even larger number of countries. Carriers are now refusing to traverse the Red Sea because of the dangers. The result of this (duh!) is to make oil more difficult for Europe especially to get, and the result of this (duh!) with oil prices being internationally influenced, is a higher price to pay at the pump (and everywhere else). So, just when – in this country – the Fed claims to have pretty much got inflation under control, a new worry arises – rising oil prices, rising energy prices, rising inflation all over again. And this, among other things, spells more trouble for the Democrats and Joe Biden. Trouble he doesn’t need.

The second problem also concerns Mr. Biden, and is the subject of a front page article today in the NY Times. The headline is (in all caps): MOST DISAPPROVE OF BIDEN ON GAZA, SURVEY INDICATES.

Biden has come out full square on the side of Israel in this war. He, like most others who have not been captured by the “social justice” movement of treating the world as a perpetual battleground between the “oppressed” and the “oppressors”, condemned the Hamas attack of October 7, and understood and approved of Israel’s need to retaliate and cripple (or, if possible, completely destroy) Hamas. But the Israeli response, now over two months old and unrelenting, has destroyed much of Gaza’s infrastructure and its economy, killed 20,000 or so Gazans (many or most of whom have been civilians and women or children), and displaced 90% of the populace. None of this has really been disputed.

The United States has been one of the few countries not voting in the UN for a ceasefire, and not trying to put any limits on Israel, or on funding Israel, other than some general moral suasion that may, or may not, be genuine.

The chart on the front page of the Times says it all: Only 33% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of Gaza, and only 38% think Biden is doing a better job than Trump would do handling Gaza, while 46% believe Trump would do a better job.

It is true that Biden cannot catch a break. And, in this post, I am not suggesting whether or not Biden’s policies are right or wrong as far as Israel and war go. But for domestic political consumption, it is clearly one more problem for the Biden reelection campaign.

And, a Trump win would be a disaster, as I think we all know.

Just sayin’.