More than meets the eye in Biden's approach to Israel

In his recent book, The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future, the journalist Franklin Fowler draws a masterful summary of the US President's approach to Israel through an episode in 2021 when Hamas rockets from Gaza descended on the skylines of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and furious Israeli retribution followed.

- Prashant Jha

One, offering historical context, Fowler suggests that Biden is deeply committed to the alliance with Israel from the time he met the then Israeli PM Golda Meir as a first-time Senator in 1973, on the cusp of the Yom Kippur War. Two, he genuinely does not believe that both sides are equally to blame and supports Israel's right to defend itself when Hamas launches terror attacks against Israel. 

Three, Biden has known Benjamin Netanyahu since the 1980s and despite having a troubled relationship with him often because of his far-Right politics, Biden has always maintained a degree of personal warmth with the Israeli leader, once sending him a photograph inscribed, "Bibi, I don't agree with a damn thing you say, but I love ya." And four, in 2021, acting against the advice of his closest aides, Biden did not call for a ceasefire or criticise Israel's reaction, which he believed would only push Netanyahu away. Instead, in his view, the "quickest way to end the conflict was to stand squarely with Israel, to smother Netanyahu with love". Fowler writes, "Then, at the right moment, Biden said that he would take advantage of the trust he had deposited in the bank. Only then would he tell Bibi to wind the war down. But in the meantime, he was going to hug Bibi tight." 

In 2021, Netanyahu continued his offensive even as Biden came under criticism from his party's progressives for not doing enough.