It’s harrowing to watch a human being set himself on fire, stand up as long as possible, and then collapse into a heap. That’s what Aaron Bushnell, a young member of the US Air Force, did when he torched himself in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, and later died. He was protesting what he had earlier called Israel’s “genocide” in the Gaza Strip. “Free Palestine,” he tried to yell out from the fireball, until it silenced him.

That conflict in the Middle East may also consume the re-election campaign of US President Joe Biden. As last week’s primary in the swing state of Michigan showed, voters whom he needs for victory in November increasingly blame him for the Israeli bombing of Gaza that Bushnell was protesting, a campaign that Biden himself has called “indiscriminate”. These voters include Arab-Americans, but also African-Americans – more than 1000 black pastors are pressing Biden to force Israel into a ceasefire – as well as left-leaning and youngish people in general.

Bloomberg Opinion