With the U.S. presidential elections six months away, everything President Joe Biden says and does this year will be analyzed through crass political calculus. Will his decisions appeal to the American public?

That reality alone should make the Biden administration wary of how they respond to the growing protests throughout the U.S., and especially on the country's college campuses, about the crisis in the Gaza Strip.

The White House is the only international voice Israeli leaders might listen to as they continue to fight a war against Hamas, the Palestinian political and military movement. But will Biden use that voice powerfully, publicly and often in demanding an end to the fighting?

Many doubt he will.

Diverging directions 

Before we go any further, it is important to understand the purpose of this article: to acknowledge that the humanitarian disaster weighs heavily on American public opinion. Attempting to offer a dispassionate argument that does not defend or criticize Israel or Hamas, might be foolish, especially when recognizing the U.S.' own divided society, nevertheless analyzing what the president is doing right now demands such a stance.

Public opinion is clear: A majority of Americans reported in March and April that they disapproved of the Israeli military's actions in Gaza.

What Americans want and what the president has done do not align.

Remember, it was the U.S. that road-blocked multiple ceasefire resolutions offered up by the United Nations (UN) in recent months. The U.S. ambassador to the UN defended one veto in February, claiming that such a resolution might derail talks that would have led to a release of hostages.

Fast forward two months and one conclusion can be drawn: Those talks were a failure because hostages remain.

The U.S. has often been the first country to offer sustained humanitarian aid to other nations in dire need thereof. Americans are proud of their country's legacy of sending people and goods all over the globe whenever a crisis emerges. That history explains why the American people now want to hear much more about "humanitarian relief" and much less about a "humanitarian crisis."

Those sentiments are being most loudly, and in the minds of some people controversially, shared by college students.

Sound of silence? 

In the U.S., college students, beginning at New York City's Columbia University on April 17 and since expanding to other states, are protesting the bloodbath in Gaza. One publication that reports on issues throughout higher education examined the situation at Columbia University and called what was happening there "a full-blown crisis." 

The university's leaders allowed New York City police to arrest more than 100 people, and they suggested students detained by police might face academic suspension.

Two facts to remember: The majority of the protesters are in support of the Palestinian people, and Jewish students on multiple college campuses say the rhetoric they hear often crosses the line between voicing an opinion and engaging in antisemitic hate speech.

Peaceful protest has a long history in the U.S. It should be honored as one of the essential freedoms American citizens have. Students engaging in that type of behavior ought not to be punished; whether you or I agree with their position cannot mask that the law defends their right to speak out in favor of (or against) an issue important to them.

So far, Biden has chosen to say little about the developing protests on multiple college campuses. What he has said, though, is clear: He believes the majority of protesters are interested in violence. In late April, he said, "I condemn the antisemitic protests […] I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians."

A final thought: Biden once explained his lack of interest in the Viet Nam War (1954-75) protest movement, which swept through the U.S. from the mid-1960s until the early 70s, using a derogatory word to define the protesters and noting he was "far apart from the antiwar movement."

If he is far apart again in 2024, one wonders if the words "humanitarian relief" will be heard at all this year.

The author is an associate professor at the School of Informatics, Humanities and Social Sciences at Robert Morris University, the U.S. This article was first published on the China Focus website 

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon 

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