Biden's once-strong prospects have faded, plus: Biden vs. Bibi, again; what does Hamas want in Gaza?; and population decline isn't just a China problem …

Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. May 10, 2024 | |
| Fareed: This Election Is Not Going How I Thought It Would | "When President Joe Biden made clear that he was going to run for reelection, I had a sense of what his election strategy was and thought it was an intelligent path to victory," Fareed writes for CNN Opinion. "After the chaos of Covid-19 and the administration of former President Donald Trump, Biden would stand for normalcy and a rising tide of good economic news." Roughly six months before Election Day, Fareed continues: "I have to admit, none of this is playing out as I had thought." Polls in swing states look encouraging for Trump. Biden isn't getting much credit for an improved economy. Surveys show that on the top two issues for voters—the economy and immigration—Trump is viewed more positively. Biden's support for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza also may be dragging him down politically. The polling result that troubles Fareed most "concerns the question of who is more competent. Biden led Trump by nine points in 2020, but Trump now leads by 16 points in 2024. That 25-point shift could be a reflection of people's sense that the president's age is affecting his capacity to govern. If so, there is very little that Biden can do to change that perception." | |
| Biden has said he will cut off some US weapons shipments to Israel, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves ahead with a planned invasion of the Gazan border city of Rafah. And indeed, some have been paused. After Biden made that shift publicly in an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett, The New Yorker's Susan Glasser writes, "Translation: the long Biden-Bibi bear hug is over. The President of the United States is now all but publicly daring the Prime Minister of Israel to defy him. … [T]he fact that the President had to go public with his qualms reflects an inarguably grim status quo, in which he and his top officials have spent months on shuttle diplomacy seeking an end to the fighting and something approximating a durable peace with nothing to show for it." The New York Times' Peter Baker makes a historical parallel: to Ronald Reagan's friction with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin over Israel's war effort in Lebanon in 1982. Memorably, Reagan told Begin in forceful terms that he opposed Israel's prosecution of that campaign, calling the situation in Lebanon "a holocaust." | |
| What Does Hamas Want in Gaza? | Many have lamented the absence of a clearly workable postwar plan for Gaza. Various ideas exist, offered by various parties: The White House has envisioned a reformed Palestinian Authority governing the Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has offered a plan to withdraw most Israeli forces and see local Palestinians handle Gaza's civilian governance. Various analysts have suggested a multinational Arab force to stabilize Gaza and for wealthy Gulf states to pump in money to rebuild it. That has been met with skepticism. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan told Fareed his country would only warm up to Israel if it allows irreversible progress toward a Palestinian state. But what does Hamas want? "They are trying to relieve themselves of the sole burden of governing the Gaza Strip, which had become an impediment to achieving the group's goal of destroying Israel," Matthew Levitt writes in a Foreign Affairs essay, offering one theory. "[A]s talks hosted by China in early May between Hamas and [rival Palestinian political party] Fatah officials have underscored, the Hamas leadership is also trying to jump-start a process of reconciliation with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which Fatah controls, despite years of fierce hostility between the two groups. … Like Hezbollah, the heavily armed, Iranian-backed Shiite militant movement in Lebanon, Hamas wants a future in which it is both a part of, and apart from, whatever Palestinian governance structure next emerges in Gaza. That way, as with Hezbollah in Lebanon, it hopes to wield political and military dominance in Gaza and ultimately the West Bank without bearing any of the accountability that comes from ruling alone." | |
| Population Decline: Not Just a China Problem | Much has been made of China's demographic decline, as low birth rates and an aging population prefigure an economy with fewer working-age adults, less overall production, and difficulty supporting a relatively large elderly population. "China's demography has set it on a course for disaster that will be difficult and perhaps impossible to avoid," Jack A. Goldstone wrote for Noēma magazine last year. In a Foreign Affairs essay, Nicholas Eberstadt writes that it's not just a problem for China, but for much of East and Southeast Asia: "As of 2023, Japan is East Asia's most fertile country, even though its childbearing levels are over 40 percent below the replacement rate. China's childbearing levels are almost 50 percent below the replacement rate … Much the same is true for Taiwan. South Korea's 2023 birth level was an amazing 65 percent below the replacement rate—the lowest ever for a national population in peacetime. If it does not change, in two generations South Korea will have just 12 women of childbearing age for every 100 in the country today." That upends some broad economic and geopolitical expectations, Eberstadt warns: "Demography is not destiny, but the power of demography means the long-heralded 'Asian century' may never truly arrive." | |
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