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Residents have returned to Sderot, and yet rockets continue to terrorize the traumatized Israeli town that sits less than a mile from the Gaza border. Eight months into Israel's operation, only three-quarters of Hamas' terrorist infrastructure in Gaza has been cleared. Since Oct. 7, terrorist groups have attempted new incursions into Israel, leading to a cat-and-mouse game on Israel's northern border, leaving nearby cities empty. In the southernmost city of Eilat, the port remains sealed off from shipments in and out. The once-popular tourist destination has become a shadow of its former self, as Yemen continues to threaten its safety and security.
On the Gazan side, meanwhile, a terrorist organization still calls the shots, holding its people and the world hostage to its contemptuous demands.
This is the picture of a raging war between Israel, the United States' staunchest ally in the Middle East, and Hamas—a multi-front war that has shown no sign of resolution.
But what happens in the Middle East doesn't stay in the Middle East. It is dissected by pollsters, research institutes, policymakers, and pundits, as often as not, leaving out one core ingredient: common sense.
English-born American founding father Thomas Paine is credited with popularizing the phrase "common sense"—the natural intelligence believed to be accessible to all rational people—through his pamphlet "Common Sense," published in January 1776.
Paine would doubtless be pained by the lack of reason and the inability to have foresight in making sound policy decisions that coincide with the beliefs of the majority of the American people.
Consider, for example, the zigzag policy of first backing Israel, then criticizing it by freezing approved and paid-for weapon packages, or the recent withholding what should have been a routine UN veto, a historical no-brainer. These actions have been Washington's leverage as Americans approach an election year. Heated exchanges among democratic allies have almost weekly been either leaked to the press or intentionally tested as trial balloons.
The United States has stressed that Israel should not engage in an all-out incursion and invade Rafah, citing the need to prevent mass casualties.
Recent polls on both sides of the ocean paint different pictures. The Harvard CAPS/Harris poll taken in April found that more than 70 percent of Americans were in favor of an Israeli offensive in Rafah, while the majority of Israelis support a hostage deal over the Rafah operation according to the recent Israel Democracy Institute survey.
The Harvard poll is contrary to the current Biden Administration's read on one of Israel's main goals of the war, while the IDI survey reveals the Netanyahu government's aspirations as being out of touch with the Israeli consensus.
In reading recent headlines, the Biden administration paused the sale of several thousand high-impact bombs due to Israel moving ahead with its final hope of destroying the terrorist infrastructure in Rafah and hopefully freeing the hostages who remain alive.
The reactions to the Biden administration's misread of polls and apparent desire to placate Hamas, leaving Israel high and dry in an existential war, include billionaire Haim Saban breaking his silence in an email to President Joe Biden stating: "Let's not forget that there are more Jewish voters, who care about Israel, than Muslims voters that care about Hamas."
It was neither the poll nor the policy; it was bold leadership from a staunch backer that probably helped sway another zigzag policy, but not completely. The heavy bombs were withheld, but, not coincidentally, a new $1 billion aid package was offered.
The campus encampments and protests and spate of antisemitism throughout North America and Europe are directly connected to the Jewish state's war in Gaza and the Biden administration's foreign policy blunders.
Here, U.S. policy differs for example from the United Kingdom, where encampments would be dismantled and civil unrest in universities clamped down under police jurisdiction rather than university-controlled decisions. The Biden administration should likewise be applying common-sense policies and leadership and rely less on electoral pocket predictions.
Yemen, the tribal country largely ruled by the Ansar Allah movement, better known as the Houthis, where the majority live on $2 a day, is controlling the portal to the world's waterways. A recent report by The Media Line revealed that the Houthis can cut cables under Bab el Mandeb, disabling internet access to 2 billion people in Europe and Asia.
I spoke with officials in Eilat who confirmed that the port remains closed, and Port of Eilat CEO Gideon Golber said he hoped the war escalated in the North with Hezbollah. This would cause Ashdod Port to close as well, because maybe then Israel and the world might realize these terrorists will multiply this modus operandi, stripping not just Israel's shipping corridors but other countries' as well.
On May 7, Gallup's annual World Affairs survey updated a poll they initiated in 2004 on the seriousness of perceived threats to U.S. vital interests. More than three-quarters of Americans viewed cyberterrorism (79 percent) and the development of nuclear weapons by Iran (77 percent) as topping these critical threats. The same poll revealed that about 52 percent of Americans now see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a critical threat to U.S. interests, whereas in 2022 it recorded 35 percent. Once again, the polls reflect an alarming upward trend in American concerns, but not one that the current administration seems to be hearing.
Is the U.S. administration going to poll Americans on whether they need to respond to these globally dangerous threats or utilize prudent judgment in not just reacting to missiles shot at U.S. and global transport ships, but in taking proactive measures to stop the Houthis? The U.S. government designated the Houthis a terrorist organization late in Donald Trump's presidency, and lifted that designation a few weeks later, when Biden entered office. The State Department only restored the group to the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list in February of this year.
What is driving the decision-making is often policy embedded in bureaucracy and a faltered emphasis on polls over pragmatism.
A dose of common sense is essential for better leadership and governmental decisions, and better electoral outcomes. It is that common sense tied to critical thinking that we urgently need to regain.
Felice Friedson is president and CEO of The Media Line news agency and founder of the Press and Policy Student Program, the Mideast Press Club, and the Women's Empowerment Program. She can be reached at ffriedson@themedialine.org.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
