Israel still needs Biden's support after Gaza conflict - editorial

During the IDF operation, Bide articulated consistent support for Israel’s right to defend itself against the barrage of missiles coming from a terrorist organization bent on destroying it.

By JPOST EDITORIAL
Updated: MAY 22, 2021 21:48
Biden talks tough on China in first speech to Congress (photo credit: JIM WATSON/POOL VIA REUTERS)
Biden talks tough on China in first speech to Congress
(photo credit: JIM WATSON/POOL VIA REUTERS)
US President Joe Biden surprised many Israelis during the last two weeks with his steadfast support for Israel. While he consistently called for a deescalation, Biden was clear and unequivocal about Israel’s basic right to defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks.
During Operation Guardian of the Walls, he articulated consistent support for Israel’s right to defend itself against the barrage of missiles coming from a terrorist organization bent on destroying it, and swam against a rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment among progressives and selected cultural icons, such as John Oliver, whose 10-minute diatribe against Israel on his popular Last Week Tonight television show went viral on social media.
Within his own party Biden came under pressure not just from members of the so-called “Squad” like Congresswomen Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) or Rashida Tlaib (Michigan) who called for America to stop military support to Israel, but also from mainstream Democrats who were urging a reassessment of US ties with the Jewish state.
“It’s just simply a fact that there was never this kind of pressure vocally from the Left on issues related to Israel during the Obama years,” Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor in the Obama administration, told NPR.
When Biden took office in January, there were parts of the Israeli establishment and particularly within Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party who were concerned of a return to the Obama years, which included calls for freezes on settlement construction, a return to the pre-1967 borders culminating in the refusal to veto UN Security Council Resolution 2334 which blasted Israeli settlement activity as lacking any legal validity, in the last weeks of Obama’s presidency.
So far though that has not happened. What also didn’t happen was the imposition of extreme pressure on Israel during the operation to reach a ceasefire. While Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for an end to hostilities, there are ways to lay on the pressure and that didn’t happen.
The Jerusalem Post’s veteran analyst Herb Keinon gave as an example President George W. Bush’s call on Israel to immediately withdraw from the West Bank after the launching of Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.
“My words to Israel are the same today as they were a couple of days ago,” Bush said at the time at a news conference alongside visiting British prime minister Tony Blair at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. “Withdraw without delay.”
Two days later, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the president expected Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian cities it moved into and to “do so now.”
Prime minister Ariel Sharon heard what Bush said but he didn’t blink. Operation Defensive Shield – long hailed as the turning point in Israel’s war against West Bank Palestinian terrorism – went on for another month.
The Biden White House could have taken a similar approach, pressuring Israel through multiple channels – press conferences, interviews and back-channel diplomacy. But it didn’t and that says something.
It also says something that on Thursday, just an hour before the ceasefire was supposed to go into effect, Biden spoke at the White House, commended Netanyahu for accepting the Egyptian-mediated truce and immediately pledged to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome interceptor stockpiles.
Biden underscored that “the US fully supports Israel’s right to protect itself against indiscriminate rocket attacks from Hamas and other Gaza terror groups that have taken the lives of innocent civilians in Israel.”
On Friday, Biden said there had been no shift in the Democratic Party’s commitment to the security of the State of Israel, reiterating the party’s long-standing support for a two-state solution.
“My party still supports Israel,” he said. “Let’s get something straight: until the region says unequivocally they acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as an independent Jewish state, there will be no peace. There is no shift in my commitment to the security of Israel. No shift. Period. What we still need is a two-state solution. It is the only answer.”
Israel did the right thing by working with Biden during this conflict and heeding his call for a ceasefire when it came on Wednesday. Considering the competing forces in the Democratic Party, Biden’s support cannot be taken for granted. With such a volatile region, Israel will need Biden in its corner in the not too-distant future.