Biden's Jewish heart: How Israel found a true friend inside the White House
For all the disagreements with Netanyahu, the US president will go down as one of the biggest champions of Israel and the Jews. What's more, he has stood firm against his own party's anti-Israel trends, stressing the moral justification for Israel's existence and his support for it.
Ariel Kahana
Israel Hayom
Oct 1, 2023
There are countless clips mocking him. His rivals ridicule him and claim he has become senile. His supporters have been antsy about his condition and wonder whether he has the stamina to stay on the campaign trail and lead them to victory in 2024. In Israel, there are also many rumors as if he is no longer connected to reality.
What's true and what's not will only become clear once he is no longer in office. The Oval Office secrets tend to come out only after its occupant vacates the place. That said, we can already say with certainty that this US president has a special place in his heart for the Jewish people and Israel the likes of which has never been exhibited by his predecessors for many decades.
This is not just about his appreciation and support, a common feature among many Americans and their leaders; it is about his personal commitment that he was fed in his upbringing. One sentence that he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week put this special approach to Israel on full display: "Without Israel, there's not a Jew in the world who's secure." This timeless statement and all-too-significant meaning is no longer heard that often, even from Jews. This US president, and leader of the Democratic Party, is not just Israel's friend, he also understands, backs, and justifies Israel's reason to exist.
He also repeated his common refrain that "if there were no Israel, we'd have to invent one." Meaning - amid the growing claims even among some Jewish communities in the US that there are two co-equal Jewish hubs in the world, Biden made sure to highlight Israel's importance for the continued survival of the Jewish people and for ensuring that the Jewish community in the US thrives. He is old enough to remember the days when Jews were discriminated against in the US, before the Jewish state was founded, and even during its early statehood years. What's as important – and Biden said it in his own voice – is that this principled stance trumps any disagreements on certain matters. "Because even where we have some differences, my commitment to Israel, as you know, is ironclad," he said.
Biden's detractors will claim that he just talks the talks like any politician who is nearing the end of his political career. But they are wrong. Whatever his condition is, this is still the president of the United States, whose actions and statements carry a commitment and whose legacy is doubly important – especially because this is a Democratic president.
We know that the blue party's anti-Israeli sentiment has deepened over the years and that the criticism against Israel has cited moral arguments. But against these trends stands the party's standard bearer who has stressed the moral justification for Israel's existence and his support for it. In American politics, moral considerations have a significant role to play in forming policy, at least on the Democratic side of the spectrum.
Not Obama
Biden's attitude to the Jews is diametrically opposed to the previous Democratic president, Barack Obama. Unlike Obama, who saw Israel as an entity whose very existence was inherently wrong because it had supposedly usurped the territory of another nation, Biden believes "Israel is essential," as he has told Netanyahu in their meeting. Or simply put: Obama's heart leaned toward the Arab-Palestinian side; Biden's beats on the Israeli-Jewish side. He was moved by his visits to Israel, he lights up with vitality when he meets Israelis and knows how to get angry at Israelis as if they were "mishpuche," as he said once. Like Donald Trump, his children also married Jews.
And now to the details. Biden followed in Trump's path by arriving in Israel during the first year of his presidency, setting a precedent of sorts for his successors. Biden greenlighted the sale of Israeli Arrow interceptor missiles to Germany after getting a request from President Isaac Herzog. The deal gives Israel a boost in its military standing, as well as in its economic and diplomatic stature, and it is historic. He has continued the close defense cooperation with Israel and launched a presidential plan of action – both domestically and internationally – to fight antisemitism. Biden is the one who ordered to have Israel join the US Visa Waiver Program and gave up the pledge to reopen the US consulate for the Palestinians in east Jerusalem. Despite the difficult disagreements with Israel, there is much less discord coming out of the White House compared with the Obama days. He may be very much at odds with "the most extreme" government in Israel's history, as he has said, but his people do not come out with condemnations against Israel on a regular basis like Obama's people did in his tenure.
The most important thing is that he is willing to hear Israel out. Of course, Biden would have preferred to have the Bennett-Lapid government in power and has had a hard time accepting the current government. But when all is said and done, he and his people have listened and are genuinely trying to bring Israel and Saudi Arabia together. As far as they are concerned, this paradigm shift is not easy on them – Obama refused to do this and thus missed out on an opportunity to forge regional peace.
As early as 2015, when current Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer (and effectively the no. 2 figure in the government) was ambassador to the US, he laid the groundwork for bolstering relations between Israel and the Gulf state. He tried to convince Obama's people that there are overlapping interests among regional actors to get under the wings of the US against Iran and to embrace Israeli innovation (this eventually became the Abraham Accords). But Obama's people wouldn't listen. Obama was convinced that Dermer and Netanyahu were trying to get him to take his eye off the prize: The Palestinian issues, which were so dear to him. He ultimately let the UN pass Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israel.
It took a while to convince the Trump administration officials as well, until finally there was a breakthrough and the Abraham Accords brought Israel, Sudan, the UAE and Morocco to announce deals in 2020. In 2021, Biden entered the Oval Office, and initially, White House officials were barred from even uttering the words Abraham Accords because anything related to the former president was taboo. Bennett and Lapid managed to soften this opposition by setting up the Negev Forum, which is designed to bolster the regional trends toward peace. But the crown jewel has always been Saudi Arabia. Biden's visit to the kingdom in 2022 was a failure. But despite getting a cold shoulder from Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Biden's continued disagreements with Israel over Iran and the judicial reform and the Palestinians – Biden is fully invested in having Saudi Arabia join the accords. His government might still occasionally nudge Israel on Palestinian matters and he might not be tough on Iran – which has resulted in the Saudis raising their price for a deal – but his transformation should be commended.
Fifty years of friendship
Of course, there are various interests at play, which is a critical component in Biden's posture. We should not forget that for Biden, there is not a lot to gain politically from having Israel and Saudi Arabia forge a deal. It might help the US national security – primarily because it would serve as a counterweight to China's rise in the region – but voters choose their president based on how he stewards the economy; not based on foreign policy and defense. It doesn't mean that everything is fine and dandy in Israel-US relations. Biden is no right-winger. As vice president, his reaction to construction beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem during his visit to Israel resulted in a crisis. He boycotted Netanyahu for several months before he met him as president, and publicly expressed his displeasure with him – in a humiliating fashion – and meddled in the judicial reform debate. This projected distance from Israel and as a result dimmed the prospects of peace breaking out. Of course, the appeasement to Iran has been a disappointment and spells disaster. But in the grand scheme of things, Biden's legacy on Israel should be viewed through the prism of a leader who has been alongside Israel for 50 years. As a young senator who met Gold Meir three weeks before the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, his message to future presidents is, "Without Israel, there's not a Jew in the world who's secure."
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