Has Joe Biden's standing fallen to a new low ... in a different country? Put it this way -- his ambitions to force Benjamin Netanyahu out in new Israeli elections may have just as much chance as Biden's pier in Gaza.

A new poll in Israel shows Netanyahu has gained a sudden burst of electoral strength at the expense of chief rival Benny Gantz. And Biden may have played a rather large role in generating it, too:

If elections were held today, according to the poll, National Union would pick up 25 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, while Likud would win 21. The four-seat gap between the two parties is down from a high of 19 seats in a December survey, when Gantz’s party led Netanyahu’s by 37 seats to 18, the network noted.

Respondents preferred Netanyahu to Gantz as premier by a margin of 36 percent to 30% in Wednesday’s survey, marking his first lead since a poll from May 18, 2023, when Netanyahu was at 38% at Gantz at 37%. ... 

Gantz, who joined the government days later, was shown in a December poll leading Netanyahu 45% to 27%. As recently as April, Gantz was still out in front, with 35% preferring him while 29% backed Netanyahu.

What happened? Netanyahu got a lot of blame at the beginning of the war for allowing Israel's security to be breached so easily and massively, and not unfairly either. Netanyahu was in charge and had shifted his focus to domestic policy, especially a very controversial legal reform that distracted the country for quite a while prior to October 7. The nation rallied behind the government but voters clearly wanted a change in December, even with the war proceeding more rapidly than thought possible and with a lower cost in lives.

Six months later, and really just in the last few weeks, Netanyahu has reversed his fortunes while Gantz has fumbled away his opportunity. Or was it someone else other than Gantz that did it?

Channel 12 attributed the shift to Gantz’s recent threat to bolt the government, apparently shedding considerable support he had accrued for perceived statesmanship in joining the emergency coalition.

As readers will recall, Gantz publicly demanded a post-war Gaza plan from Netanyahu as an ultimatum two weeks ago that he would leave  the unity government, with a deadline of June 8. Netanyahu's fellow Likud member and defense minister Yoav Gallant had issued a similar demand a couple of days earlier, only without an explicit ultimatum. But these decisions have been made by the war cabinet since the start of the unity government, not by Netanyahu alone. The "war cabinet" is Netanyahu, Gantz, and Gallant, by the way. Missing from both speeches but most notable Gantz' was any coherent alternative plan to the strategy the three had been implementing thus far. 

So what was going on? Both Gallant and Gantz had been meeting with Biden administration officials on strategy, especially in dealing with Rafah, prior to those public statements. Biden, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi openly called for elections to replace Netanyahu in March and have been openly critical of the war cabinet's strategy and tactics ever since. Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, always close to the Democrat foreign-policy establishment, wrote a paean to Gallant and his alignment with Biden's team two weeks ago, and just a couple of days before Gantz decided to eclipse Gallant as Biden's partner on strategy. Gallant's partnership with the Biden administration looked like an opening for the Israeli Left, and Gantz leaped in front of Gallant to grab it with an ultimatum ... without an actual alternative to present.

Kind of like Biden, no?

Needless to say, having Joe Biden as your political strategist is dicey at best. Using the authors of the Kabul Bug-Out as your military advisers is far, far worse. But most of all, Israelis can sense opportunism at their expense during wartime quite well. And it appears that they don't want to be led by Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and Chuck Schumer any more than most Americans do. 

This is only one poll, of course, and the Israeli elections could be as far as two years off (October 2026). That's good news for Joe Biden, because if they held them today, Biden and Democrats would be humiliated over the results if this poll is accurate. The longitudinal changes in this poll are embarrassing enough as it is. 

Addendum: Perhaps not coincidentally, Gallant has turned a bit more hawkish on Rafah and made sure the Biden team knew it:

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant “emphasized the importance of operating” in Rafah, when he spoke with US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin overnight.

Gallant said there is “concrete information” of hostages being held in Rafah and claimed 20 “terror tunnels have been identified” in the area, in his conversation with Austin, according to a statement from the Israeli Defense Minister’s Communications Office. ... President Joe Biden had earlier warned that the US would stop supplying American weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a major invasion of Rafah.