President Joe Biden meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office in July. (Susan Walsh/AP)
This February, President Joe Biden was eating an ice cream cone with Late Night host Seth Meyers in Manhattan when a reporter asked about the chances of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. “Well,” Biden replied, prompting breaking news posts, “I hope, by the end of the weekend.” The president then assured the public: “We’re close.”
Nearly seven months later, no ceasefire is in sight. On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that multiple US officials told the paper that there is little chance of a ceasefire.
The report continued a horrific week for Biden’s foreign policy record in the Middle East. Each of the past five days has brought its own grim news about the vanishing chances of peace in the region:
Monday: Israel formally expanded its war aims to include the return of residents evacuated out of the north. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the “possibility for an agreement is running out” with Hezbollah. Gallant explained, “Therefore, the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action.” It suggested a much heightened potential for a wider war between Lebanon and Israel.
Tuesday: Israel began detonating explosive-rigged pagers and walkie-talkies in an attack that targeted members of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed political and militant group. Axios reported that US officials were not warned of the operation. The indiscriminate approach killed dozens—including at least two children—and injured thousands. In doing so, Israel greatly increased the odds of a regional war (that the United States does not want to be dragged into).
Wednesday: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said that his kingdom will not normalize relations with Israel without the “establishment of a Palestinian state.” The announcement appeared to kill off any chance of success for a years-long (and widely criticized) effort by the Biden administration to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, while largely sidestepping the concerns of Palestinians. That effort had begun under the Trump administration in the much touted Abraham Accords that the former president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had helped broker.
Thursday: A Wall Street Journal story headlined “US Officials Concede Gaza Cease-Fire Out of Reach for Biden,” cited senior US officials who have concluded that a ceasefire deal is unlikely during Biden’s presidency. “No deal is imminent,” one said. “I’m not sure it ever gets done.”
Friday: Israel killed at least 12 people in an airstrike in Beirut targeting senior Hezbollah commanders. As Gallant made clear earlier in the week in reference to Lebanon, “we are at the start of a new phase in the war” and the “center of gravity is moving north.”
Initially, one of the few bright spots of Biden’s approach was that no regional war had broken out. The recent Israeli assaults in Lebanon, along with Gallant’s comments about a “new phase” of the war, suggest that may soon change. For Netanyahu, who is widely believed to favor a second Donald Trump presidency, a new phase of conflict that makes a Biden-Harris administration look ineffectual just as some Americans begin voting may carry additional rewards.
This string of havoc was all, sadly, predictable. In response to the brutal Hamas attack on October 7, Biden embraced what was labeled a “bear hug” approach to his relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In keeping with a decades-old personal approach for managing relations with Israel, he made sure there was “no daylight” between him and the Israeli Prime Minister in public. Biden thought it would allow him to shape the direction of the war in private.
Biden’s faith in a no daylight approach had been repeatedly disproven prior to October 7 but he stuck with it anyway. That decision reflected an effectively limitless commitment to supporting Israel. As I reported in December on the roots of Biden’s flawed response to the war, his Israel record was unusual:
Biden has long gone further than many of his fellow Democrats in defense of Israel. As a senator, he backed moving the American embassy to Jerusalem decades before Donald Trump made that a reality, boasted about attending more fundraisers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) than any other senator, and savaged an effort by George H.W. Bush to push Israel toward negotiating with Palestinians. As vice president, he undercut Barack Obama’s efforts to push Israel toward peace. As president prior to October 7, he continued policies implemented by Trump that sidelined Palestinians.
The death toll in Gaza stood at around 20,000 when that story came out. It is now double that, and the full death toll may prove far higher. Nearly 100,000 people have been injured. Israeli hostages remain in captivity in large part due to Netanyahu’s repeated efforts to derail ceasefire negotiations.
What has not changed is Biden’s almost complete unwillingness to use the United States’ extensive leverage over Israel. Aside from some 2,000-pound bombs, his administration has ensured that arms keep flowing. That decision has been made despite substantial evidence that doing so violates US laws that prevent weapons from being sent to foreign units implicated in major human rights violations. Without US weapons, Israeli military experts have made clear that the country would not be able to carry on fighting at such scale.
