No issue threatens to break President Biden's fragile Democratic coalition like Israel's response to the Hamas terrorist attack, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen report.

• Why it matters: Infighting is spreading, slowly but meaningfully, at every layer of the Democratic Party over Biden's full-throated support of Israel.
• It runs much deeper than college campus protests or caustic comments from elected officials.

Step back and survey the split:

• Many liberal Jews are furious that so many progressive Democrats aren't more outraged by the slaughter of family and friends back in Israel. Some are threatening to leave the party.
• Pro-Palestinian Democrats are outraged at the rising death tolls in Gaza made possible by Biden's posture.
• Biden's administration and political operation are getting tense and growing more deeply divided. Nearly 20% of the DNC's roughly 300 employees signed a letter asking their boss to demand a ceasefire, Axios' Alex Thompson reports.
• A junior State Department foreign affairs officer sent a massive internal email to organize a "dissent cable" on the administration's Israel policy — and alleged on social media that Biden is "complicit in genocide" in Gaza, Axios' Hans Nichols and Barak Ravid scooped.

By contrast, Republicans are mostly united in supporting Israel and have been consistently for a long time.

🏛️ Day after day, more House Democrats are criticizing Israel's expanding ground operations, raising concerns with Biden's policy and even calling for a ceasefire.

• At least five of the liberal House Democrats in "The Squad" are likely to face primary challengers after criticizing U.S. military aid to Israel — Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Summer Lee (Pa.) and Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.). Money is expected to pour in.

🔭 The big picture: Biden's political standing was shaky before the war.

• Any churn of pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian voters could cost him a state — or the White House if it's another close-call election, which both sides expect.
• Biden's political team is particularly concerned about younger voters: Polls show they're less pro-Israel than their parents' generation.

🚨 The big fear: This might be the best it gets for Biden in terms of holding together Democrats.

• It was only a fringe group of Democrats who didn't condemn the brutality of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. But with each passing day, the images and reality of innocent Palestinians, including many kids, getting killed in Israeli bombings of Hamas makes Biden's job harder.

Top officials tell us explaining Israel's position that Hamas militants use Palestinian civilians as human shields resonates mostly with staunchly pro-Israel Democrats.

• Biden's war-planning team is pro-Israel across the board — but top officials know their own party decidedly isn't. Many more liberal Democrats are pacifists in general, anti-war in nature, pro-Palestinian in mindset — and deeply divided over Israel's leadership and Gaza strategy.

"My donors are flipping out," one leading Democratic official told us. "They're happy with Biden but angry with the party." This Democrat told us that Biden's approach to Israel shows "resolve and conviction. For voters who think we're weak on immigration and crime, this is the kind of strength they need to see."

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If the election were held today, Donald Trump would easily beat Joe Biden with over 300 electoral votes, according to a new swing state poll from The New York Times and Siena College.

• Why it matters: The poll undermines the idea that Biden is the most electable Democrat against Trump, Axios' Alex Thompson writes.

📉 By the numbers: The poll shows Trump leading Biden in five swing states — Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania — all of which Biden won in 2020.

• Biden led Trump by 2 points in Wisconsin. The president is down 4 points in Pennsylvania, 5 in Arizona, 6 in Georgia, 5 in Michigan, and 10 in Nevada.
• The margin of error is about 2 points when all the states are joined, and up to 4.8 points for individual states.

71% said Biden was "too old," including 54% of Biden's supporters.

• Only 39% of those voters felt the same about Trump — who'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated, and has shared no details about his health.

Biden polls weaker than alternative Democrats — even Vice President Kamala Harris.

• Trump leads Biden by 5 points. A generic, unnamed Democrat has an 8-point lead over Trump — a 13-point swing.

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Multigenerational households — three or more generations under one roof — are on the rise in the U.S., Axios' Briana Crane writes.

🧮 By the numbers: Half of the top 10 counties with the highest share of multigenerational households are in South Dakota.

• Nearly 31% of households in Oglala Lakota County, S.D., are shared by multiple generations.

The big picture: Financial concerns and caregiving needs are two of the major reasons people live with their parents (and parents' parents.)

• There were 6 million multigenerational households in the U.S. in 2020, up from 5.1 million in 2010, according to census data.

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The era of free returns — an essential part of the rise of online shopping — is ending, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.

Zoom out: Returns surged during the height of the pandemic, when more people were shopping online.

• The return rate increased from 10.6% in 2020 to 16.5% in 2022, costing retailers more than $800 billion, according to the National Retail Federation.

63% of consumers said they order multiple sizes or versions of the same item, with the intention of returning what they don't want, according to Narvar, which makes software for retailers. That's up from 55% in 2019.

• "The living room is the new fitting room," says Heidi Isern, who heads design and research at Narvar.

🔎 Zoom in: More than 40% of retailers are now charging return fees, per Narvar's research.

• That includes H&M, J. Crew, Zara and DSW, Retail Brew notes.
• Even Amazon — the leader of the free-returns wave — now charges for some returns.

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Young people aren't on dating apps, Axios' Erica Pandey writes from a new Axios/Generation Lab survey.

🧮 By the numbers: 79% of respondents — college and graduate students around the country — said they don't use any dating apps, even as infrequently as once a month.

• Among the apps, the most popular was Tinder, which 12% said they used at least monthly.

Why it matters: College students are a target demographic for dating apps, with companies like Tinder and Bumble advertising and hosting campus events.

But the overwhelming majority of young people on campuses say they prefer to meet people in person.

"I feel dating apps have ruined the dating scene for many people my age and ruined their self-confidence," says Melanie Perez, a junior at Sam Houston State University.

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The Washington Post announced last night that Will Lewis would become publisher and chief executive of the historic newspaper company in 2024.

• Why it matters: Lewis, 54, a former journalist turned media executive who has served as CEO of Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones, will be tasked with making the company profitable again after a rough year, Axios' Sara Fischer writes.

⚡ Catch up quick: Financial challenges over the past year have weighed on morale and led to an uptick in union activity at the Post.

• The Post is on track to lose $100 million this year, according to a source familiar with the company's financial situation, after failing to bring in a profit last year.

Read on.

That feeling when The New York Times breaks your story:

• The Post swapped out the middle story on its Sunday front page after The Times scooped the Will Lewis selection last night.

At top: First edition. At bottom: Final edition.

Dan Senor and Saul Singer — co-authors of "Start-Up Nation," a New York Times bestseller about Israel — will be out Tuesday with "The Genius of Israel," which aims to tell the story of a "diverse people and society built around the values of service, solidarity, and belonging."

Why it matters: With the Israel-Hamas war ignited after the book went to press, global appreciation for the stakes in the Middle East is soaring. The authors have received a prepublication surge in demand for appearances on TV and podcasts, and at events.

"So much of our book is about Israeli resilience," Senor — a former Pentagon official and adviser on Republican presidential campaigns, and now a top executive at Elliott Investment Management — told me. "So there's a lot of interest in hearing about it — and concern about whether Israel's still got it."

• "[T]he building blocks of Israel's resilience are about to be on display again," he added. "We are watching this resilience right now."

Israel is "a country that lives under perpetual threat," the authors write:

• "We all read about how the U.S. and other affluent democracies are caught in a vicious cycle of demographic collapse (adults having fewer and fewer babies), accelerated aging (populations are aging and shrinking), deepening pessimism ('deaths of despair' and a teen mental health epidemic), and a loneliness crisis."
• "We wanted to understand how Israel became the exception. Israel has shown surprising resilience against all the trends sapping affluent societies of their health, vitality and purpose."

Go deeper: More on the book ... Read a review.

The college basketball season starts with dozens of matchups tomorrow.

👀 What we're watching: The transfer portal — along with name, image and likeness (NIL) legislation — has turned college coaches into de facto CEOs, AP reports.

• Not only must they continue to recruit high school players, but they must also mine the transfer market while ceaselessly recruiting the players already on their roster, lest they slip away to a program offering more playing time or, yes, more NIL money.

Kansas, which won the title two years ago, leaned more on transfers to complement a three-man freshman class and produce a roster that earned it preseason No. 1 in the AP Top 25.