A carefully manufactured myth

Meir Jolovitz

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.” – John F. Kennedy

There is extant a fundamental misunderstanding of one specific aspect of the November 2024 US presidential elections which has led, inevitably and invariably, to a misbegotten understanding of the Biden/Blinken foreign policy calculations in dealing with the post-October 7 Middle East.

It’s all about Michigan, we are told.

It is not.

Any student of a Logic 101 course at any university – perhaps even at Harvard, despite it have suffered a terrible blow to its cachet as the epicenter of scholarship – will understand the following: if the premise is wrong, there is a great certainty that the conclusion that follows might indeed be wrong as well. The percentages tell us as much. That’s the way logic works.

Well, to argue that the vote in Michigan – as it affects the 2024 election – is a pivotal reason that the progressive Left has seduced, deceived, and pressured the Biden Administration to abandon Israel in its effort to properly prosecute the war in Gaza is foolishly wrong. And it can be very easily exposed, despite the fact that virtually every political commentator, and no fewer voices throughout the media – both liberal and conservative – have taken the bait. A ubiquitous chorus of punditry.

It’s all about Michigan, we are told.

And they are wrong.

Everyone has been bamboozled by a spurious argument, and it is rather remarkable that it hasn’t been exposed.

As proof of this fear that Michigan – which is accurately seen as one of the important votes that will determine who occupies the White House on January 20, 2025, and axiomatically the direction of American foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel – the so-called experts cite the Leftist protest vote against Joe Biden in the Michigan Democratic Primary on February 27, 2024. The primaries (!), mind you.

As a demonstration of their displeasure with the Biden Administration’s handling of the war in Gaza – under the very mistaken belief that it was decidedly pro-Israel (a nonsensical misreading of the realities that suggested exactly the opposite), there was a well-coordinated and well-financed campaign to vote “uncommitted” – an option available to the voters. And the anti-Israel lobby exercised it most effectively. Over 100,000 voted their protest – a staggering 13% of the vote – enough to make Joe Biden’s knees buckle. And enough, every pundit understood, to drive the Blinken/Biden foreign policy (that is the proper pecking order) to pressure, and then threaten Israel.

The Left had joined the large Arab population of Michigan in a hyperactive drive to influence American foreign policy by promising to influence the election. If you don’t compel Israel to abort its assault on Gaza, the argument was crafted to suggest, we will not vote for Biden, in the general elections. And if Biden doesn’t win Michigan, Trump very likely might become president again.

That was a fraudulent lie. A manufactured myth. A transparent poker hand that everyone has chosen to ignore. Willful blindness. Or just an amateurish reading of political realities. Lacking the intellectual horsepower, the political analysts have failed to grasp that if the premise was disingenuous, the conclusion was therefore not logical.

Let’s look at the facts.

Fact: The state of Michigan has 16 electoral votes and is considered, axiomatically, one of the important battleground states. To win the 2024 presidential election, Michigan is central. Even critical.

Fact: In the 2020 Presidential elections, Joe Biden had 2,804,040 votes (50.6%); Donald Trump had 2,649,852 (47.8%). The margin was 154,188. There were nearly 85,000 votes cast for third parties.

Fact: There are 200,000 registered Muslim voters in Michigan. There are 300,000 whose ancestry is either Middle East or North Africa. Significant numbers – enough to determine a final count in a close election.

The Democrats consider Michigan absolutely pivotal to victory in 2024. They are convinced, given the polls of the past few months – where Trump is leading by a few percentage points – that they must do anything – everything! – to ensure a win in Michigan. Yes, even alienate the Jewish vote which traditionally votes 70 percent for the Democratic candidate. No matter what is happening in the Middle East, the sun rises in the East. Jews vote Democrat.

Therefore, they cleverly surmised – they have threatened not to vote for Biden if he continues to support (sic) Israel. And his knees, and those of his puppeteers who control his every move, have buckled.

Because no one dared to suggest that the emperor has no clothes.

So, let’s offer the last and most important fact: If the Democrats, including 100 percent of the Arabs of Dearborn, Michigan – where one finds as many signs in Arabic as there are in English – carry out their duplicitous threat not to vote for Biden, then Trump wins. Handily. If they opt to vote for one of the other, third-party candidates – either Robert Kennedy Jr, Jill Stein, or Cornel West – then Trump wins. Handily. Or, if they choose to sit out the election, as some have threatened to do – then Trump wins. Handily.

Those are the premises. So, let’s draw the proper conclusion.

It’s November 5, 2024. You are a progressive Democrat, angry at Joe Biden. You are a Muslim, angry at Joe Biden. You hate Israel. You support Gaza. Who do you vote for?

You vote for Joe Biden. Because you hate Israel. It’s really that simple, and no one seems to get it.

Laurence J. Peter, author of The Peter Principle, wrote: “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” One might more properly ask: “Sometimes we wonder whether the Democratic Party in Michigan is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who relay mean it.” We believe the former.

There is another side to this coin, not lost on those willing to look. Few do.

That one should not conclude that the Biden foreign policy team was railroaded into its growing antipathy towards the Jewish State, one more important fact needs to be stated. The anti-Israel hostility is evidenced by something much greater than its pressure against Israel because of the myth of the Michigan vote – with the demands of a humanitarian pause, a lengthy cease-fire as a prelude to a complete cessation of military action against Hamas, and the ultimate trump card (note the lower-case t).

It’s all about that Holy Grail by which the Biden/Blinken/Sullivan/Austin/Power/Amr foreign policy hopes to memorialize its legacy. A 2-State solution.

The Hamas (read: Iranian) invasion of Israel on October 7 and the subsequent months of an Israeli response that has been hampered by an American stick in the wheels of the Israeli military spokes have brought the United States one step closer – where it always wanted to be – to former Undersecretary of State George Ball’s preferred American Middle East policy (April 1977): Saving Israel in spite of herself.

That is the greatest danger of all. It is why the progressive voters of Michigan will indeed vote for Joe Biden (or whomever the Democrats might wish to replace him with as we near November 2024).

Meir Jolovitz is a past national executive director of the Zionist Organization of America, and formerly associated with the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.