Only 25 percent Americans believe Biden responded well to Hamas attack

Americans take a dim view of Joe Biden ‘s handling of what could yet be the biggest foreign policy crisis of his presidency so far, with only a quarter saying he responded well to the Hamas attack on Israel. Instead, some 37 percent said he had handled events badly, according to an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com. Biden is under intense pressure for the way he reacted after Hamas terrorists rampaged across Israel last Saturday morning, murdering 1,200 people.

He said he only got up at 7:30am, hours after the slaughter began, and then hosted a barbecue on the following day. On Monday, a federal holiday, with Israel still reeling from the shock, the White House told journalists before lunchtime that the president would be holding no public events. However, he delivered a powerful speech on Tuesday, dripping with raw anger at the brutality of Hamas and its gunmen, and has dispatched a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group to the region.

Conservative polling firm J.L. Partners surveyed 1,000 Americans to gauge their reactions to Biden’s performance. Their views were colored by the hours and days straight after the attack. More than half said the president was wrong not to start taking calls until after 7:30am on the Saturday. Some 48 percent said it was wrong to host a White House barbecue on Sunday, although 45 percent said it didn’t matter or they didn’t know whether it was a good idea or not.

And 36 percent said it was wrong to treat Monday (Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day) as a holiday, compared with 16 percent who said it was the right thing to do. His officials called a ‘lid’ at 11:51 that day, a technical term which meant there was no prospect of the president performing any public duties for the rest of the day. James Johnson, co-founder of J.L.P., said: ‘The American verdict on Biden so far is a thumbs down. ‘Only one in four say he has responded well, and just one in ten say he has responded very well to the crisis.’

‘He is being squeezed from both sides — he is being criticized by right-leaning voters for unfreezing the oil funds, while his left-leaning voters are less likely to back a pro-Israel response. A large chunk of people do remain neutral, suggesting Biden could yet turn things around, but there are certainly no signs of a rally around the president in the wake of last weekend’s terrible events.’ Republicans have hammered the Biden administration all week, saying that a prisoner swap deal with Iran last month, which included unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian assets, had emboldened Hamas’ biggest backer.

Americans thought unfreezing the money was the wrong thing to do by a margin of 43 percent to 29 percent (although the cash was moved to a Qatar bank for humanitarian purposes only, and was quietly re-frozen later in the week.) But by the end of the week Biden was winning praise in some unlikely quarters, suggesting that the tide may be turning after his Tuesday speech. Donald Trump’s hawkish former ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, wrote online that although he was a firm critic of the Biden administration, ‘the moral, tactical, diplomatic and military support that it has provided Israel over the past few days has been exceptional.’ The terrible events in Israel still leave Biden with a conundrum. After bringing troops home from Afghanistan, the last thing he wants is to see the country embroiled in another intractable foreign war.

Israel has kept up a steady pace of air strikes on Gaza, where Hamas is based, and is preparing for a ground invasion of the territory. So far, 27 Americans are reported to have died in the Hamas attack. And several are missing, feared kidnapped by Hamas. Americans broadly back Israel’s actions this week. Those surveyed support a ground invasion by a margin of almost two to one. Some 50 percent believe it is reasonable for the Israeli Defense Forces to fully invade and occupy the territory, according to an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com, compared with 28 percent who said it would be unreasonable. There is also overwhelming support for air strikes on Hamas targets. And Americans narrowly support a blockade of electricity, food, water and fuel. Some 45 percent said it was reasonable, and 36 percent said it was not. Read the full story: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12628693/Israel-Hamas-poll-Biden-approval.html?ito=msngallery

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