This Week in Politics —Trump Sparks Bipartisan Pushback

By Stephen Kokx (https://kokxnews.substack.com/)

Is Donald Trump a lame duck president?

New polling data indicates the American people are increasingly frustrated with Donald Trump’s Israel First approach to the Middle East.

A Gallup survey released Tuesday revealed that only 32 percent of Americans approve Israel’s war on Gaza. This is a 10 percent drop from last September. ^[1]

The survey also found that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is now viewed negatively by 52 percent of Americans, the highest since the late 1990s.

Gallup additionally discovered that only 9 percent of Americans under 35 approve of Israel’s actions in Gaza.

This historic shift is confirmed by a study released by Pew in April that showed half of Republicans under 50 held unfavorable views of Israel. ^[2]

The Zionist lobby in the US should be alarmed, very alarmed, by these numbers. The indoctrination tactics it has used on Evangelicals for decades aren’t having the same effect on Millennials and Zoomers.

So while GOP Senator Ted Cruz recently told Tucker Carlson that he was “taught in Sunday School” that the Bible commands him to “bless Israel,” younger Americans aren’t buying that flawed theology.

The further Trump digs his heels in on his pro-Zionist policies, the more at risk he is of becoming not just a lame duck president right now but especially following the mid-terms, as he is on the verge of losing his base altogether.

Credit: Daniel Torok/Official White House photo.

Bi-partisan opposition to the war

Democrats and even a few Republicans are starting to speak out against Israel’s barbaric cleansing of civilians in Gaza.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene recently became the first GOP lawmaker in Congress to call it a genocide.

“It’s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,” she said in an X post. ^[3]

Democrats are condemning Netanyahu’s campaign, too.

Now, whether they have suddenly grown a spine and are concerned about the massacring of innocent life, or if they are merely sensing they have a campaign issue to run on for the upcoming midterms, Democrats and their allies in Washington D.C. appear to be fed up with the situation.

“The tide is turning. The American people do not want to spend billions to starve children in Gaza,” socialist Bernie Sanders rightly said. “The Democrats are moving forward on this issue, and I look forward to Republican support in the near future.” ^[4]

Earlier this week 27 Senate Democrats banded together to block the sale of assault rifles to Israel. A similar number voted to halt the sale of bombs and other weapons. ^[5]

Sanders, who is ethnically Jewish but does not practice any religion, brought the measures to the Senate floor.

Ahead of the vote the Trump administration issued a statement saying it “strongly opposes” the passage of the resolution. ^[6]

An Israel First policy

Trump has sided with Israel in other ways, causing many to speculate that he is doing so because he’s implicated in the Epstein files.

“Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them. Oh’ Canada!!!” Trump said in a recent Truth Social post. ^[7]

Trump also approved sanctions on officials of the Palestinian Authority for filing paperwork against Israel with the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. ^[8]

If Trump continues to threaten every country that endorses Palestinian statehood he is going to have very few allies left, as France and the UK have also signaled support for the move. ^[9]

Growing resentment of Israel

To his credit, Trump seems to be aware that his fealty to the Netanyahu regime is having a negative impact politically.

“My people are starting to hate Israel,” he reportedly told a Jewish donor recently. ^[10]

Yes they are, Mr. President.

Perhaps this is why Evangelical Zionist Charlie Kirk emphatically said on a recent podcast that Israel is “not” starving Palestinians. ^[11]

Warmonger GOP Senator Tom Cotton has asserted the same thing.

“Children in Gaza aren’t going hungry because of Israel. They’re suffering because Hamas uses food and aid as a weapon to stay in power,” Cotton said in an X post. ^[12]

But the cat is out of the bag. Dozens of prominent public figures who are not ideologically aligned are blowing the whistle on the crimes being committed in Gaza.

Geopolitical analyst John Mearsheimer, commentator Piers Morgan, and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly are just a few of the growing number of persons shining a light of the atrocities being carried out there. ^[13]

“They have lost support amongst their dearest friends. And even the entire Democrat Party here in the United States has turned against them, and they’re losing Republicans by the day here in America, which is their most important ally,” Kelly said of Israel recently. ^[14]

Charlie Kirk offered up some minor criticisms of Israel in a recent conversation with Gen-Z students

Christians are also being targeted

Netanyahu is undeterred by the bad publicity, or so it seems. Hell bent on his desire to create “Greater Israel,” he is reportedly on the verge of launching a campaign to annex the West Bank if Hamas doesn’t agree to a peace deal. ^[15]

Of course, Netanyahu will likely prolong negotiations to the point where a deal will never be made, and then with Trump’s backing, he’ll send the Israeli military into the region to claim the territory for his own.

Predictably, he too denied that there is starvation taking place in Gaza. ^[16]

Christians, meanwhile, are being caught in the crossfire. Not only did Israel bomb Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza, but illegal Israeli settlers have terrorized Christians in a village in the West Bank. LifeSiteNews has reported that they set cars on fire, threw stones at houses, and spray-painted walls. ^[17] ^[18] Sadly, this sort of treatment is par for the course for Christians living in the Holy Land these days. ^[19] ^[20]

We should pray that President Trump realizes that those with whom he is partnering are enemies of not just Christians but the Church and Christ Himself. If he doesn’t recognize this he will go down in history as an accomplice to genocide, one of the worst things a human being, let alone a president, can be remembered for.