President Biden’s approval with Arab Americans is plummeting over his support for Israel. Unwilling or unable to change course, Mr. Biden is instead trying the old three-card monte trick: Distract your marks with fast moves and faster talking — in this case, about Islamophobia.

A survey released by the Arab American Institute found an all-time low 17 percent of those polled in their demographic supported Mr. Biden. The figure reflects a 42-percent crash in the Democrat’s support since his election in 2020 and an approval rating of just 29 percent. 

Faced with so much blowback from a constituency, expect Mr. Biden to go “wobbly.” That’s what Baroness Thatcher, then prime minister of Britain, warned President George H. W. Bush not to go in the face of Iraq’s bluster in the First Gulf War. 

Mr. Biden has begun to wobble in a search for middle ground in the Holy Land by calling for “humanitarian pauses,” as if they’re distinct from the ceasefires demanded by supporters of either Hamas or of the Palestinian-Arab plight. After each wobble fails to fool opponents, he tries again.  

“The dissatisfaction with President Biden is really quite significant,” the Arab American Institute’s president, James Zogby, says in a virtual briefing on the results. He describes  the numbers as “dangerously low” to a greater extent than he had “ever seen for a Democratic candidate for president.”

Two-thirds of respondents disapproved of Mr. Biden’s reaction to the Israel-Hamas conflict. “Palestine remains the wound in the heart that doesn’t heal,” Mr. Zogby said, calling it “as emotionally important to people of Arab descent as Wounded Knee,” the 1890 massacre, in South Dakota “was to Native Americans.” 

Arab Americans are making the reasons for their loss of faith in Mr. Biden clear. It’s what he calls “rock-solid and unwavering support” for Israel, which those sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians Arabs see as coming at their expense. 

The Biden administration’s response is to shuffle the cards so that  Arab Americans lose track of the one they care about so much. With this end in mind, the White House is raising the specter of Islamophobia, casting it as the top issue for Muslim Americans and Mr. Biden as a champion against it. 

It fell to Vice President Harris to make the pitch. “I am proud to announce,” she said, that the administration “will develop our nation’s first national strategy to counter Islamophobia. This strategy will be a comprehensive and detailed plan to protect Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim from hate, bigotry, and violence” and government discrimination. 

Ms. Harris did her best with the hand she was dealt, but nobody was fooled. “I hope this isn’t what they got from my poll,” Mr. Zogby tweeted. “‘Islamophobia’ isn’t the cause for the ‘tanking’” of Mr. Biden’s poll numbers and “so their proposal isn’t the cure.” 

Mr. Zogby said on X that Arab Americans are “upset because for 3 years nothing’s been done to secure Palestinian rights. & now the US is enabling a massacre & a new Palestinian Nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe,” as the displacement by Israelis is called.

While anti-Islamic attacks and discrimination are a concern, they cannot compare to the unifying touchstone of generational trauma. Mr. Biden, however, would rather talk about Islamophobia and paint a picture of a country awash in anti-Islamic hate.

Yet to the extent that there has been an uptick in Islamophobia, the executive director of the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ahmed Rehab, says Mr. Biden shares blame.

When Mr. Biden wanted to call the family of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Palestinian-American boy allegedly murdered by his landlord, Mr. Rehab helped. He also said that “statements that have come out of the White House … contributed to the atmosphere of otherization, dehumanization, and Islamophobia.”

Rather than play tricks, Mr. Biden can lay his cards on the table and make his case that the best thing America could do for Arabs everywhere is help Israel win the war Hamas started.