On October 18, 2023, President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, the first and only US president to travel to Israel in wartime, told the citizens of Israel, We’re going to stand with you. We’ll walk beside you in those dark days, and we’ll walk beside you in the good days to come.
Almost five months later, on March 11, 2024 in his State of the Union Address, in front of both chambers of the US Congress, with tens of millions of people watching, President Biden said, Israel has a right to go after Hamas. Hamas, he said, could end [this conflict by] laying down arms, by releasing the hostages and surrendering those responsible for October 7th. But, he also quoted and lent credence to the Hamas Health Ministry’s unsubstantiated number of Palestinian wartime deaths.
One week ago, Vice President Kamala Harris declared the US would not rule out consequences if Israel launched a military operation in Rafah to finish off Hamas.
On Monday of this past week, the US allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire during Ramadan. No quid pro quo for the release of the Israeli hostages still being held in Hamas hell. No condemnation of Hamas for its repulsive rampage through southern Israel on October 7.
So how did we get from we’ll walk beside you to the UN resolution of this past week? How did we go from rhetoric to action, from jawboning to voting to abstain? And what does the US shift in policy portend, not only for Israel, but for the credibility of America in the Middle East and around the globe?
I believe President Biden is fighting an internal battle, not from within his administration, his party or congress, but rather a battle between his kishkas vs. his gut.
I’ve heard Ron Dermer, a minister in the current Israeli coalition and a long-time confidante of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, say that Biden’s affinity with Israel comes from his kishkas, from something deep inside him. The president has often invoked his father’s admiration for Israel and the president himself revels in his fifty-year relationship with multiple Israeli leaders.
Those were his kishkas talking when he so forcefully and justifiably came out for Israel in the days immediately following 10/7.
But now, more than five months later, Biden’s political gut is overtaking his kishkas.
The younger Democrat voters have been bombarded and brainwashed by the social media images of the war in Gaza. They’re big into the colonial oppressor narrative and the intersectionality of so-called oppressed peoples. They’re threatening to stay home on election day. The very vocal progressive members of Biden’s own party are also putting the heat on him to be more even-handed.
The Arab-American voters in places like Michigan and Nevada are upset with his support of Israel and are rumbling about not voting at all in November.
Biden is in a tough battle with Trump, and the last thing he needs is to lose votes that could spell the difference between electoral college wins or losses in key swing states.
There’s one more thing. Like presidents before him, he apparently has had it with the stiff-necked Netanyahu, who has his own political agenda and domestic audience to play to. But we can’t lay the blame totally on Bibi. Other Israeli prime ministers, even those way to his left, like Shimon Peres during the 1982 first Lebanon war, have had their tugs of war with Washington.
So, slowly, slowly, the White House has gone from we’ll walk beside you to there could be consequences to we abstain.
What does all this mean for Israel in its war against the Gazan terrorists?
The Israeli population is resolute in the IDF’s pursuit of total victory. They’d like to have the United States walk with them, but they are fully prepared to walk alone. If the remaining Hamas battalions in Rafah aren’t destroyed, if Yahiya Sinwar isn’t killed, Hamas wins. Plain and simple.
And if that happens, Israel will be in a state of existential peril for many years to come, not only from Hamas but most especially from Hezbollah and Iran. Additionally, if the US was committed to rescuing as many hostages as possible, the UN vote to abstain made that harder to achieve.
Hamas now sees American resolve weakening. It can taste victory due to what it was counting on all along; a rift between the US and Israel.
In Iran on Tuesday, Hamas kingpin Ismael Haniya was positively giddy about the UN vote. But notice, he not only zeroed in on Israel, he also saw the vote as a blow to the United States.
He said the resolution shows that the Israeli occupation is experiencing unprecedented political isolation, and the US is unable to impose its will on the international community.
With America’s progression away from rock solid support for Israel, the Biden administration is making a huge foreign policy blunder.
- Israel will enter Rafah and destroy Hamas with or without the blessing of President Biden. So its threats of consequences and of withholding military supplies will ring hollow with the international community.
- Saudi Arabia will view America’s weakening support of Israel as a red flag as it seeks a defense pact with the United States. They will see American domestic politics exerting too much influence over foreign alliances. They will move closer to China and Iran. Rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia will never happen.
- It will confirm for Iran that stiff American resolve for its closest ally in the Middle East, can in time, turn to rubber. Coupled with America’s very tepid response to defending the Red Sea from Iran’s proxies, the Houthis of Yemen, Biden has boosted Iran and has added more instability to an already volatile region.
- China and Russia will also be strengthened by weakened US support of Israel. They’ve been in Hamas’ corner, 100%. Will Taiwan or Ukraine feel good about their American allies?
- If Hamas is left intact, Joe Biden’s dream of a two state solution is kaput.
There is no question Israel will defeat Hamas because it has no choice. It will happen even if the US gut punches it with more votes at the UN or with threats of consequences. The big question is whether President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr, will continue to follow his gut or go back to following his kishkas, to do the right thing, not only for Israel, but also for America.
One last thing…
Former senator and former vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman died on Wednesday of this past week.
Watch his debate in 2000 with his opponent Dick Cheney, and mourn not only for Joe Lieberman, but also for how far our national discourse has sunk.