Polls come before Israelis and Ukrainians

The US definitely and the UK probably will hold general elections this year, and both will be ‘either… or’ binary.

One party will win, the other will lose, with some Americans and Britons regarding the outcome as triumph and others as disaster. The split between the pros and cons will be about even, with a couple of percentage points on either side.

There’s no such ambivalence for the Ukrainians and Israelis. Those two nations fighting for survival may be indifferent to the results of these elections, but the very fact they are being held this year is cause for concern.

Both nations are heavily dependent on Western aid, especially with arms. The Ukraine’s survival hinges on it totally, Israel’s to a large extent. That’s why both nations follow the vicissitudes of British and American internal politics with equal apprehension.

They know that vital aid for their war efforts is held hostage by such outfits as Gallup, YouGov, ICM, Mori and so forth. These keep a watchful eye on the cursor of public opinion, informing the candidates of the slightest fluctuations.  

The candidates watch such oscillations with equal intensity. As things stand now, the polls suggest a close race in the US and a Labour landslide in Britain. But politicians have their own pollsters and, above all, their own instincts. They know that any election can be decided by a few swing votes.

Now, our politicians tend to be highly specialised creatures with single-track minds focused on electoral success. Hence they base their pronouncements and, if currently in power, also their policies on what they perceive as the good of their political careers.

Thus, to paraphrase an Anglo-American football coach, polls are everything for them; but in the immediate runup to the elections, polls become the only thing.

By and large, the two electorates seldom gear their vote to the competing foreign policies. In Britain such interests are lukewarm; in the US, ice-cold. That, however, is talking about the populations at large. Yet within each electorate there exist groups that treat some foreign policies as a matter of vital interest.

Moreover, they may well vote as a bloc for a candidate whose foreign policies appeal to them. For example, New York’s large Jewish population may vote against anyone perceived as anti-Israeli regardless of any other considerations. Britain’s and America’s large Muslim population, on the other hand, may well punish a candidate advocating continued assistance to Israel.

This explains why Joe Biden’s administration has issued a ban on the supply of certain weapons to Israel. Biden’s advisors have probably done the numbers and found out that, though such stinginess may upset some New Yorkers, the city and especially the state as a whole aren’t going to vote for Trump anyway.

However, Michigan and Pennsylvania both have large Muslim populations who are practically guaranteed to vote as a bloc for the less pro-Israel candidate. Thus denying Israel some vital armaments may put Biden on the good side of voters in two swing states.

Now, in Britain the almost four million Muslims make up 6.5 per cent of the population. And Muslim organisations have already kindly informed the two leading parties that their political survival may well depend on their Middle East policies.

Neither party has so far openly stated its intention of cutting off arms supplies to Israel. But the anti-Semitism scandals within the Labour Party probably stand it in good stead with British Muslims. They may sense Labour is their safer bet and, if they do, the projected Labour landslide may well become a reality.

Hence it amuses me no end watching Labour and Tory politicians zigzag around this issue with the elegance of professional figure skaters. There’s no doubt that, if the polls suggest a close election, both parties will move towards the Hamas side, but Labour can do so with greater ease.

In the US, Trump has been consistently pro-Israel, whereas Biden, just as consistently, has been more, shall we say, open-minded. If the polls show that the election hinges on Michigan and Pennsylvania, which in turn swing on the Muslim vote, Biden’s mind will probably open so wide that the last vestiges of pro-Israeli policies will fall out. And even Trump may decide that perhaps superimposing the odd swastika on the Israeli flag may not be such a bad idea after all.

The situation with the Ukraine is more complex. America has close to three million Russian immigrants, but they are unlikely to vote as a bloc. The Russian population of Britain is relatively small, but it’s heavily concentrated in London. From what I hear, most of the 150,000 Russian immigrants living here are pro-Putin, and I’m sure such hearsay has reached the ears of potential candidates.

Yet Putin’s war on the Ukraine affects internal politics in ways other than just ethnic voting. The ghost of Neville Chamberlain is wafting over Britain, hissing the old story about war in a faraway land about which we know nothing and care even less. Appeasing Putin seems like an election winner if it can be positioned as the only way of avoiding a major war – or even a minor one that may involve British forces.

This argument may hold sway in the US as well, where isolationist attitudes have always been strong, especially within the Republican Party. Yet there, aid for the Ukraine may also be seen as sacrilege to the hallowed American Taxpayer. The arithmetic of such a claim may not add up, but its demagogic potential is high.

I don’t know whether I’ve identified the subterranean political tremors caught by the polls accurately. Yet one thing I’m sure of: neither side in either election cares about the survival of Israel and the Ukraine as sovereign states. Not really.

Those two heroic nations are merely pawns on the electoral chessboard, to be promoted or swiped off depending on internal poll results. These days, politics, foreign and even domestic, isn’t just immoral but amoral. Neither, speaking specifically of the treatment of Israel and the Ukraine, is it particularly clever.

Those two nations are spilling their blood not only for themselves but also for us. But, reviving the chess metaphor, our politicians must be able to calculate more than one move in advance to see that.

Such an ability is beyond them. The blinkers of forthcoming elections are in place, and the candidates can see only one square, the shape of the ballot box.