As tough as life is in the post-industrial ruins of northern England, the battered town of Rochdale seems light years away from the corpses and rubble of Gaza.
But, with a significant community of voters of Asian origin - 20% of the electorate, many of them Muslim - the by-elections to be held here later this month may confirm the fears of some Labor strategists: that unconditional support Labor leader Keir Starmer's Israel is beginning to take its toll at the polls.
"The choices are easy," George Galloway, the veteran Scottish socialist and pro-Palestine activist contesting the Rochdale seat, said in a video last week. "I will fight for Palestine and for the people of Rochdale... and Keir Starmer will fight for Israel."
Galloway is already the favorite after a scandal broke out in the last few hours in which the Labor candidate has been disavowed by Starmer due to statements considered anti-Semitic.
"The Muslim vote explained Labour's 10,000-vote victory in Rochdale in 2020, so there may be problems for them this time because of Gaza," said economist and statistician Paul Ormerod, a Rochdale native.
Something similar is happening on the other side of the Atlantic, where outrage over what 25% of Democratic voters consider a genocide in Gaza is causing a flight of support for President Joe Biden, according to the latest polls.
It is a matter of concern for the leaders of the two Anglo-Saxon center-left parties, since elections are being held in both countries in the coming months: the presidential elections in November in the US and the general elections in the United Kingdom, probably in the fall. .
After seven months of bombings that have already left more than 27,000 dead, the massacre in Gaza is beginning to shake the electoral landscape in many Western countries.
But in the US and the UK, the most important focuses of a new international protest movement embodied in a series of mega demonstrations in London and Washington, the rejection of Israel already threatens to damage the electoral expectations of Biden's Democrats. as much as Starmer's Labour.
It occurs in different segments of the electorate. On the one hand, the young activists who were once mobilized by the Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn movements are at the forefront of the Palestine solidarity movement. In the United States, many of them, ironically, are young Jews horrified by the cruelty of the Israeli offensive.
On the other hand, there are voters of Asian and African origin - many of them Muslims - who are already demanding a change in the position of the Democrats and Labor regarding Gaza. In England, these constitute an important vote in the London metropolis as well as in some cities of the so-called red wall in the north, where Labor sought to regain ground.
There, communities of fourth or fifth generation Asian immigrants, in cities like Rochdale, already view Starmer with suspicion, a polished and calculating lawyer who has said that he does not consider the bombing of Gaza to be genocide or that the Israeli blockade is a violation of international law.
Following to the letter the slogans that come from Washington, Starmer has refused to recognize the right of Palestine to be a state, breaking with the Labor past. Overall, Starmer Labor's foreign and economic policy has been developed in close collaboration with the Biden Administration.
In the US, although the million Muslim votes only represent 1% of the total electorate, in critical states for the elections, such as Michigan or Georgia, it has important weight.
In Michigan, - where the landscape of abandoned factories and mosques in cities like Dearborn, is reminiscent in some sense of Rochdale - the problems for the Biden campaign are obvious.
About thirty Democratic representatives of the Arab community in Michigan - some 280,000 people, one of the largest in the US - have announced that they will not vote for Biden either in the Democratic primaries in the state on the 27th of this month or in the presidential elections in November.
The loss of votes could be catastrophic for the Democratic president who won by a very narrow margin of 2.2% in Michigan in 2020 - only 154,000 votes - after Trump's victory in 2016. In Dearborn, the community of Palestinian origin is the most big of the country.
Both Democrats and Labor have tried to build bridges with the communities most sensitive to the massacre of the Palestinians. Biden sent a delegation to Michigan a few days ago to negotiate with Muslim leaders. David Lammy, Starmer's foreign policy chief, said in an interview with the Financial Times last week that a Labor government could unilaterally recognize Palestine. But, as the death toll approaches 30,000 dead in Gaza, everything seems too little, too late.
Of course, Palestine is not the priority issue for most voters in Rochdale or Dearborn, cities that have been hit hard by the decline of manufacturing and the shortage of living wages. But moral indignation is a factor undervalued by experts on electoral trends.
What's more, in electoral districts of both countries that are going to be strongly contested, the vote - or abstention - attributable to Gaza may be critical, no matter how small it may be. Alternative candidates are already emerging in both countries who seek to channel indignation against Biden and Starmer for their support for Israel.
Cornel West, the veteran African American philosopher from Princeton University, an old fighter for civil rights, is a historical ally of the Palestinian cause. According to some polls, West, if he manages to join the electoral lists, could take away enough votes from Biden in critical states such as Michigan, Ohio or Georgia to facilitate a victory for Trump.
"The extraordinary thing about these pro-Palestinian protests is the number of disaffected voters (...)," wrote journalist Matt Taibbi after the large demonstration in Washington last month. "Trump is no longer an impossible option for people," he added, referring to the thousands who listened to West's speech after the march.
Jill Stein, candidate for the Green Party in the US, is another defender of Palestinian rights who can take votes away from Biden. For many voters sensitive to the catastrophe of the Palestinian people, Gaza is perceived as an ethical red line that makes it impossible to vote for Biden or Starmer even if the radical right - no less pro-Israel than the center left - is the beneficiary.
"I have spoken to hundreds of Muslims like me and I could count on one hand how many say they still support Biden," Haroon Mugall, a Pakistani writer who lives in Ohio, another key state for the elections, said on CNN.
In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn will almost certainly run against Starmer in his London seat of Islington, whose campaign will be focused on Gaza. Corbyn has enormous credibility as an old ally of the Palestinian cause. He was expelled from the Labor parliamentary party after being branded anti-Semitic by Starmer and the current leadership.
A number of pro-Palestinian independent candidates have stood in London boroughs with significant Asian communities such as Ilford and Bethnal Green. Andrew Feinstein, the veteran South African Jewish anti-apartheid activist, has just announced that he will contest the seat of Starmer in the London borough of Holburn.
In a new poll, Muslim voter support for Labor has fallen from 86% in the 2020 election, when Corbyn was a candidate, to 46% now, according to a poll published this week by the Labor Muslim Network (LMN). Only 29% of Muslims say they identify with Labour. "The Labor leadership must change course or risk losing the support of the Muslim community for an entire generation," warns the LMN in a statement.
