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Policy
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October 11, 2024
In addition to Kamala Harris’s campaign floundering, Biden is leaving behind a decades-long disaster.
For Joe Biden, words and deeds should never match when it comes to America’s relationship with Israel. In fact, Biden has a trick of his own: he will rant about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in private, and even give public speeches advising Israeli restraint. But those words never result in actions that show you mean it.
Bob Wordward’s new book, Warfull of fulminations from the US president about the Israeli leader. Like CNN reportsWoodward describes the roller-coaster relationship between Biden and Netanyahu. While Biden publicly supported Israel, he fought behind the scenes with Netanyahu over how Israel would continue the war in Gaza.” Earlier this year, Biden told aides: “That bastard Bibi Netanyahu is a bad guy. Fucking bad guy!” When Israel sent troops into Rafah, even after Biden said entering that town was a red line he shouldn’t cross, Biden said, “He’s a fucking liar.” Biden told Netanyahu, “Bibi, you have no strategy.” Biden also told the Israeli prime minister: “You know the perception of Israel around the world is that you are a rogue state, a rogue actor.”
Woodward’s account coincides with the Politico report Earlier this month, “Biden told confidantes that he did not believe his Israeli counterpart would have sought a ceasefire, arguing that Netanyahu was trying to maintain the conflict to save his political future and help Trump in the November election.”
Despite Biden’s acerbic views on Netanyahu, the US president has spent the past year joining every escalation of the conflict by Israel, which has turned the already horrific and disproportionate retaliation in Gaza into a regional war, with the continued occupation of Lebanon and the ever-increasing retaliation against Iran. cycle.
Biden was certainly right to fear that Netanyahu would use the war for his own political purposes — which includes winning Trump the presidency. But in achieving these goals, Netanyahu could not have hoped for a more compliant accomplice than Biden himself, who has broken records on Israel. $17.9 billion in military aid as well as protect Israel from facing diplomatic or legal consequences from international organizations and allow Israel to cross any red lines that Biden has claimed are inviolable.
In the process, Biden looked weak and hurt Vice President Kamala Harris’ election chances. Polls show a close election, with Harris trailing groups that oppose Biden’s Middle East policies, not just Arab Americans (a crucial demographic in Michigan), but also young people more broadly.
Current number
As important as the election implications are, they actually understate the damage Biden has done. Biden’s unconditional support for Israel is the biggest US foreign policy disaster since the Iraq War (which Biden also supported). Like the Iraq war, this is also a disaster, the impact of which will be felt for decades to come in the destabilization of the Middle East and the international order.
Typing The New RepublicMatt Duss, Executive Vice President of the Center for International Policy, observed:
Biden was no more beaten by Netanyahu than George W. Bush when he decided to support the Iraq war. He chose this path and stayed on it, despite constant warnings about exactly where it was leading. Having done this, when he leaves the White House, he and his team leave this world a more dangerous and lawless place, America’s credibility more broken, the so-called “rules-based order” even more “so-called” than when he entered.
Duss cites a relevant analysis by Lara Friedman of the Middle East Peace Foundation that Biden has created new rules for war. As Friedman correctly observes: “The cost of these new rules of war will be paid in the blood of civilians around the world for generations to come, and the responsibility of the United States for enabling, protecting, and normalizing these new rules and their horrific, dehumanizing consequences will not be forgotten. “
Career diplomat Hala Rharrit, who resigned from the State Department in April in protest of Biden’s policies, grappled with the long-term consequences of Biden’s defense of Israeli militarism. Typing The NationalRharrit points out:
This failed and intransigent Biden-Harris policy has not achieved any of its stated goals, especially the release of the Israeli hostages or the destruction of Hamas. This only ensures an endless cycle of violence, revenge, extremism and hatred. The generational trauma experienced by the children of Gaza, the West Bank and now Lebanon will have a lasting impact.
Despite Biden’s complete failure on his own terms, there is little hope for a course correction in the near term. Donald Trump at least as committed to giving Israel a free hand against neighbors like Biden, sharing the bipartisan dream of a Saudi-Israeli defense pact that would ensure permanent American hegemony in the Middle East. Kamala Harris is in the awkward position of becoming the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party without a primary election, so she did not want to distance herself from Biden in any way. While it is possible that Harris will take a different path once he becomes president, the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus and the institutional continuity of the foreign policy elite make it difficult for him to break away from his predecessor.
The anti-war movement today is much weaker than it was in the years following the Iraq War, when the fact that Republicans initiated and supported the war allowed anti-war sentiment to find a home in the Democratic Party. While there have been violent protests against Biden’s policies — especially on college campuses — many anti-war Democrats are refusing to rock the boat in an election year. The protests have noticeably subsided since Biden announced he was withdrawing from his presidential bid.
The question is whether anti-war sentiment could be revived if Harris is elected and Trump is out of the presidency. If so, it must be an anti-war movement willing to challenge both political parties.
Joe Biden – despite his often praised domestic achievements – is memorable because he left behind a truly epic foreign policy disaster. Whoever wins the presidency must govern in the shadow of disaster.
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