Every US president wants to leave office with a positive legacy. Some do so to draw attention away from a scandal; others hope that the history books will treat them better than the political class or the American public did while they held the highest office in the land. In the case of President Joe Biden, he clearly wants the history books to show that he restored America’s standing in the world after the chaotic years of the Trump presidency. To Biden, this means that he shored up America’s alliances, stood up to dictators, and pursued a “moral” foreign policy.
Biden can take credit for making NATO stronger in Europe, especially through the support the alliance has given Ukraine against Russian aggression. But his policies in the Middle East, particularly toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which he has indulged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his war crimes, is a large stain on his record. The high Palestinian death toll in Gaza as well as in the occupied West Bank, along with the many deaths of Lebanese civilians in the current Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, will mar Biden’s legacy. Although there is speculation that Biden will be tougher on Israel after the November presidential election, when as a lame duck he will no longer feel compelled to take political considerations into account, that may be too late to stem the suffering being inflicted on these populations.
A Long Career Devoted to Foreign Policy and the Atlantic Alliance
Ever since he became a US senator in 1973, Biden has had a strong interest in foreign affairs, traveling across the globe and engaging with world leaders. He long served as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and for a brief time in the early 2000s, was its chairman. As vice president under Barack Obama, Biden played a key foreign policy role, not only by giving advice to the chief executive but by traveling to various countries and troubled spots. In both capacities, he got to know many leaders with whom he later interacted as president.
Biden believed that Trump upended the US-led international order established after the Second World War, and was determined to set things right. After Trump’s disparaging comments about NATO and his coziness with authoritarian leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden sought to restore the status quo ante. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was such an opportunity. He rallied NATO members to not only condemn the invasion but to provide substantial military and economic support for Ukraine. Europe again looked to US leadership after the unsettled years of the Trump presidency.
Biden’s efforts to shore up NATO fit in well with his long belief in the importance of the Atlantic alliance. On October 18, 2024, during what was likely his last trip to Europe as president, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier made a statement that was undoubtedly music to Biden’s ears: “When you were elected president, you restored Europe’s hope in the transatlantic alliance, literally overnight…Putin thought we would be divided. But the opposite was true. NATO was stronger and more united than ever. And that is in no small part, Mr. President, thanks to your leadership.”
The strengthening of the NATO alliance and opposition to Putin also fit into Biden’s policy of contrasting democracies with authoritarian regimes, another key feature of his foreign policy. Biden even hosted a summit with leaders of democratic countries to emphasize how democracies can advance societies for the better.
But No Change in Many of Trump’s Middle East Policies
While Biden reversed many of Trump’s policies vis-à-vis Europe, he did not do so in the Middle East, and even embraced some of them. Yes, Biden initially restored US funding that Trump had cut off to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN organization that has assisted Palestinian refugees since 1949. But Biden did not reverse his predecessor’s move of the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem or restore the US consulate in East Jerusalem that mainly served the Palestinian community (though he did reopen it as the US Office on Palestinian Affairs). Nor did Biden reopen the PLO office in Washington that Trump had closed, or undo Trump’s recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. Instead, Biden and his team endorsed the so-called Abraham Accords between several Arab states and Israel that came about in the last few months of Trump’s presidency, and sought to build on them. In particular, the Biden team hoped to get Saudi Arabia to join the accords, which, in their minds, would be a game changer in the Middle East. The problem is that the accords bypassed the Palestinians, as if that unresolved issue would simply go away.
The Biden team hoped to get Saudi Arabia to join the accords, which they thought would be a game changer.
However, the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, horrifically reminded the world that the Palestinian issue was not going away. Biden, true to his Zionist sympathies, flew to Israel soon after, embraced Netanyahu, met with the Israeli war cabinet, and promised unwavering US support to Israel in its quest to defeat Hamas. Although Biden did warn the Israelis not to overreact as the United States did after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Netanyahu and his war cabinet failed to heed the US president’s advice.
Indulgence of Israel’s Operations
Indeed, over the past year, the Israeli response has been horrendous, causing more than 42,000 deaths, two-thirds of which are of women and children. Moreover, the Israeli military campaign has caused overwhelming destruction to housing and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, along with acute shortages of food and medicine. The withholding of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population has been especially egregious and punitive. None other than Cindy McCain, head of the World Food Programme and widow of the late Senator John McCain (R-AZ), stated recently, “The level of aid entering Gaza as a whole is at its lowest level in months…People have run out of ways to cope, food systems have collapsed, and there is no doubt that the risk of famine is still there.” The World Health Organization announced on October 17 that Israel was preventing six medical non-governmental organizations from entering the Gaza Strip while offering no explanation for its decision.
A Mere Slap on the Wrist
Media reporting has indicated that Biden has grown increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu for his policies in Gaza, which Biden described as “over the top,” referring to Israeli bombings of civilians. According to the new book, War, by Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, Biden even described Netanyahu in more colorful and disparaging terms, calling him a “[expletive] liar” for not fulfilling his promises to limit civilian casualties and allow enough humanitarian aid into Gaza. This is not the first time that Biden has had problems with Netanyahu. In March 2010, when as vice president he arrived in Israel to push forward Obama’s peace plan, the Israeli government under Netanyahu announced the construction of 1,600 Israeli apartments in occupied East Jerusalem. Biden was so furious that he kept Netanyahu waiting for an hour and a half that evening. The Washington Post, in an extensive recent article, reported that Biden “was undermined at every turn by Netanyahu’s conduct of the Gaza war.”
US military aid to Israel has amounted to $17.9 billion since October 7, 2023.
US military aid to Israel has amounted to $17.9 billion since October 7, according to a Brown University study, an amount that is far above the very generous $3.8 billion the United States gives Israel annually. The extra support since last year includes 50,000 tons of artillery, missiles, and bombs, among them 14,000 2,000-pound bombs and 6,500 500-pound bombs. In May, Biden held up one shipment of 2,000- and 500-pound bombs over concern about Israeli’s plans for invading Rafah, but later resumed the shipment of the 500-pound munitions. This brief suspension was a mere slap on the wrist that did not lead to any real change in the Israeli campaign in Gaza.
On October 13, Biden’s secretaries of state and defense, in the face of the sharp slowdown, if not the mere trickle, of humanitarian aid entering Gaza, warned Israeli officials that the United States would pursue punitive measures, including possibly suspending military aid, if Israel continued to block assistance. But they gave the Israeli government a whole month to correct this situation, which allows Israel to continue its draconian policies for the next several weeks, during which more Palestinian civilians will die. Moreover, the media announcement of this letter came around the same time that the Biden administration stated that it would be providing Israel with a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system supported by 100 US soldiers. This gave the impression in the region that the United States would defend Israel at all costs, and that the warning about suspending military assistance was not serious.
Indeed, there has been dissent in US government circles over the Biden administration’s handling of Israel’s operations in Gaza. Inspector general reports within the Department of State and Pentagon on the issue of whether the arms transfers to Israel have violated US laws are expected to be issued soon and to criticize the Biden administration. (A provision of the Foreign Assistance Act says that no country shall receive US aid if it restricts US humanitarian assistance, while the Leahy law requires the suspension of US security aid to foreign security forces who are credibly implicated in gross human rights violations.) And some former US officials have not been shy about expressing their opposition to Biden’s Gaza policy. Refugees International President Jeremy Konyndyk, a former Biden administration official, stated in September that the White House “has made every excuse in the book for the behavior of the Israeli government when it comes to the obstruction of aid, and there is a degree of frustration that those decisions are being driven more by politics than by law.”
Biden’s Beliefs and Political Calculations
There are at least two reasons why Biden has not taken a more forceful stand against Israeli policies in Gaza, such as conditioning arms sales, as many members of his own political party have urged. The first has to do with Biden’s world view. Although he is apparently greatly frustrated with Netanyahu, he does not want to be seen as hurting Israel’s security. As a longtime self-professed Zionist, Biden wants to be on record protecting the Israeli state as a haven for the Jewish people, and this belief seems to be genuine. In remarks to a White House Hanukkah event in December 2023, Biden acknowledged that while he has had “differences with some Israeli leadership,” his commitment to the “independent Jewish state is unshakeable,” even adding that the Jewish people would be unsafe if Israel did not exist.
Biden wants to be on record protecting the Israeli state as a haven for the Jewish people.
Second, on the political side, Biden seems to believe that taking any punitive measures against Israel would hurt him when he was running for re-election, and after he dropped out, would hurt Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. Republicans, including Trump, who are in lockstep with Netanyahu and his right-wing government, have attacked both Biden and Harris for even mild criticism of Israeli policies, as if the deaths of Palestinian civilians were inconsequential. Biden is from a generation of older Democrats who see that being reelected requires staying in the good graces of the pro-Israeli electorate and supporting the Israeli government, despite differences. But such unequivocal support has put Harris in a bit of quandary, as political winds on the Israeli-Palestinian situation in the United States have shifted. She has echoed Biden’s stance that Israel has a right to defend itself, while calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to Palestinian suffering. She seems to hope that this middle ground will make her more palatable to Arab-Americans and progressive elements in the Democratic Party, but that remains to be seen.
Will There be a Post-Election Surprise?
There is speculation that, once the November 5 election is over, Biden will be freer to pursue tougher policies on Israel. As a lame-duck president, he would have nothing to lose politically at that point. And whatever moves he takes would not necessarily affect Harris if she wins the presidency because she would be her own boss. But if Biden’s history is any guide, the most he may do is to suspend some more military items to Israel but not do anything dramatic. That would be unfortunate. Without real US pressure, Netanyahu is unlikely to end Israel’s war on Gaza, as well as the military attacks in Lebanon and the West Bank that have caused thousands of civilian casualties, anytime soon.
While future historians may claim that Biden pursued a “moral” policy in Europe by standing up to Russian aggression, the same cannot be said about his policies on Israel/Palestine. As one astute journalist has said, Biden’s “promise of moral leadership” is “meaningless if it doesn’t extend to the millions of Palestinians whose lives hang in the balance.” But even if Biden takes a stronger stance against Netanyahu’s policies in his remaining months in office, it may be, sadly, too little, too late.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Flickr/White House
