Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has issued a sharp rebuke of President Biden over the latter’s turn against Israel in recent weeks. Mr. Kennedy told the Sun that he would rather “lose the election” than come down on the wrong side of the issue.

The third-party candidate said Tuesday that Mr. Biden’s “failure to make the moral case for Israel” has “allowed the Democratic Party to drift away from 80 years of support for Israel.” It has also “driven the rising tide of antisemitism nationally,” Mr. Kennedy said.

After months of vocal support for Israel in the wake of the surprise Hamas attacks on October 7 — during which more than  1,200 persons were slain — the Biden administration has taken a harsher tone toward the Jewish state since the end of last month. 

In late March, America abstained from a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, allowing the resolution to pass. The resolution did not call for the release of the 134 hostages held by Hamas as a precondition, infuriating Israel. 

The White House has also pressured the Jewish state into enacting a cease-fire and to refrain from entering Rafah, where the remaining Hamas battalions are located. American officials have also pushed Israel to pursue a deal with the terror group and have harshly criticized Israel’s humanitarian efforts in the coastal enclave. 

Mr. Biden’s “most disappointing deficiency,” Mr. Kennedy told the Sun, has been “his unwillingness or his inability to forcefully explain to the American public the many reasons that our support for Israel is in our national interest, in the interest of humanity globally, and a moral necessity.”

The result of Mr. Biden’s “tentative support for Israel,” Mr. Kennedy fears, is “a more protracted war.” The plight of the people of Gaza, he said, “is heartbreaking for me.” He is confident that the “only long-term solution for reducing bloodshed is the elimination of Hamas.”

Mr. Kennedy says his principled stance on Israel has come at a significant political cost in “support and considerable funding.” Specifically, he says, “our direct mail returns dropped precipitously. I lost the intensity of support I previously enjoyed from the anti-war left. Many of my high-profile supporters denounced me.” 

“There was no political advantage in my choice,” Mr. Kennedy said flatly. “I did not advocate for Israel out of political calculation, but because no other position makes sense to me.”  

Even his level of support from members of the Jewish community, a voting bloc that overwhelmingly supports robust U.S.-Israel relations, hasn’t been affected. “I’ve had minimal support from the Jewish community,” he says. If he does end up picking up some Jewish votes, he adds, “it’s not likely to offset what I’ve lost.” 

In terms of what he’d do differently as president, Mr. Kennedy doesn’t shy away from the details. “I would schedule a 45-minute talk during prime time for a conversation with the American public about the historical, moral, and national security imperatives for supporting the only democracy in the Middle East,” he says. 

“I would challenge all of the popular narratives — that Israel is an apartheid state, an occupying oppressor in Gaza, that Israel is to blame for Gaza’s poverty or for it being an ‘open-air prison,’ that Israel is engaged in ‘genocide’ or ‘ethnic cleansing,’ that Israel illegally evicted 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 or that the 5 million descendants have a moral or legal right to return, that Israel’s existence is illegitimate. 

“Has Israel not tried in good faith for years to achieve an agreement that would allow it to live side by side in peace with its Palestinian neighbors?” he asks.

Mr. Kennedy has climbed in the polls since entering the race a year ago, now pulling close to 10 percent of the national electorate, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. He’s seen as taking voters from both the Democratic and Republican candidates, but more so from the Democrats. The campaign of President Trump has written off Mr. Kennedy as “more of a threat” to Mr. Biden. 

Leading Democrats who have opposed Mr. Biden’s new, harsh tone toward Israel include Senator Fetterman and Congressmen Josh Gottheimer, Brad Sherman, and Tom Souzzi. 

Mr. Kennedy rejects comparisons to the 1980 election wherein Jewish voters left the Democratic Party in droves due to the policies of President Carter. Some voted for Ronald Reagan, but a relatively high percentage, some 15 percent, voted for a third-party candidate, John Anderson. 

“I believe it has no bearing on my race,” Mr. Kennedy says. “My support for Israel is based on deeply held principles. There has been and continues to be significant blowback in what had been a reliable base for me.”

“I believe a leader must act according to his beliefs and moral compass and help bring the people along if initially they aren’t there,” he said. “That’s what I wish President Biden had done.”