America's policy towards Israel's war in Gaza reflects the rift between Biden and Obama and their different foreign policy.
Edward Lewis
📌 The unexpected rift revealed by the Israel-Gaza crisis is the negative disagreement between Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Former aides to the forty-fourth US president have made it clear that they do not agree with how the forty-sixth president has dealt with Israel since the October 7 attack. If Obama were in the White House, the United States would place conditions on military aid to Israel and publicize Benjamin Netanyahu's terrible failures. For Biden, only by embracing Israel can America exert influence over its actions. Without Biden's embrace of Bibi, there would be no temporary cease-fire, hostage-prisoner exchange, or humanitarian aid reaching Gaza.
📌 Regardless of the disturbing implication that Bibi needs to lay his arm to allow humanitarian relief to arrive, I'm not sure Biden's supporters are convinced by this argument. About 15,000 Gazans have lost their lives, according to the health authorities of the Hamas-controlled strip. Even if 3,000 of these are Hamas fighters, this is still an unimaginably high toll (equivalent to more than 250,000 British civilians, or 1.3 million Americans). How can any kind of "next day" political settlement be possible after the practice of murder on such a scale Then again, I'm not sure the former members of the Obama team are winning the argument either. It's not as if Obama's criticism of Netanyahu had any impact when he was president. Quite the contrary; Israeli settlements continued to expand and Netanyahu broke all diplomatic protocols by delivering a speech to the US Congress attacking Obama's Iran nuclear deal when he was in the midst of negotiating it.
📌 Leave Israel aside for a moment. My point is that there is not much love between Obama and Biden. If it weren't for the fact that Donald Trump came between their presidencies, we would have focused more on what divides these two men. Some are personal. Biden felt disrespected as vice president. His advice was routinely ignored. Obama's staff did little to hide that they saw Biden as a person to be tolerated, rather than understood. He was from a different generation and learned his politics in an era that seems to have lost its relevance. Biden felt offended.
📌 The friction between them culminated in Obama's preference for Hillary Clinton over Biden in 2016 despite the fact that he gave eight years of faithful service. Obama believed that Hillary was better equipped to win the election and preserve his legacy. We all know how it ended. It can be argued that both Obama and Hillary have lost to Trump since she was perceived as president. Only Biden, in his mind, can defeat Trump.
📌 Some of their friction is also political. If you compare Obama's foreign policy record with what Biden is doing, they are often on opposite sides. Obama doubled America's presence in Afghanistan with an increase in troops; Biden hastily withdrew in 2021. Obama reacted weakly to Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea; Biden did everything for Ukraine. Obama talked about the pivot to Asia; Biden about words for actions. Obama hated Netanyahu; Biden says that they have been friends for more than 30 years (since Bibi was an employee of the Washington embassy of Israel and Biden is a young senator). "Baby, I love you," Biden said.
Does any of this ultimately matter 📌 (chuckles) After the end of the Gaza War, I think this division will only get worse. Reports of opposition to Biden's Israeli position from within his administration, angered Capitol Hill and Democratic staff. There is a real rift within the Democratic Party, which also runs inside the Biden administration. The split is largely generational. It is not possible that younger Democrats agree more with Biden's strategy than older Democrats. This is also reflected in opinion polls. As this war continues, and as the IDF operation shifts to southern Gaza, this generational divide is likely to become deeper. In a very real sense, and it is embodied in the thoughts of Biden and Obama.
📌 It is extremely difficult to imagine how Israel will get out of its predicament, even if Netanyahu is fired. Hamas must be defeated but in the process many civilians will die. Is there any other realistic possibility In these circumstances, it's hard to see how the Democrats ' generation gap will narrow. Rana, welcome back from Thanksgiving. Have you had any extended family conversations about this,and if so, have you also discovered this age difference
Rana Forouhar responds
مرحبا welcome back, Ed . Yes, I have already had talks about Israel and Gaza during the holidays. We spent some time with the family of my daughter-in-law, one of whom had to flee Israel with her young child as a result of the war. This side of the family, young and old, tends to see Biden's support for Israel as appropriate and important. There are other young people on my side of the family who follow the university students ' progressive approach to the conflict and seem to see Palestinians as struggling like blacks in the face of colonial oppression. I must say, I think this logic is weak. It is as if we have all forgotten that Israel was created because 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, and the occupied territories were taken away during the wars.
📌 Now, you can say that the creation of Israel probably caused as many problems as it solved a dilemma. You could argue that Israel should have reached a two-state solution and exited the occupied territories sooner in the interests of peace. But either way, equating what is happening in the Middle East now with the original American sin of slavery, and/or coming up with some strictly measured hierarchy of victimhood that all right-thinking people should agree on is just a false assumption.
📌 As I said before, I see the conflict in Gaza as a three-part problem. First, Hamas is a terrorist group that committed a massacre. Israel has the right to respond. Secondly, I think the United States should probably call out Netanyahu's failures and put conditions on military aid (as Biden told him, do not repeat our "mistakes" after September 11). But we also have to step back and ask, ' what would happen in the Arab world if Israel didn't exist?' I don't think it's nothing good. These countries have enormous problems with modernity.
📌 They are oppressing half of their population and do not seem to be moving towards democracy in any real and lasting sense. That's why groups like Hamas thrive. Three things can be true at once. Unfortunately, this makes foreign policy very difficult.
