Biden’s foreign policy agenda upended by Israel-Hamas war

As the world woke up on Saturday morning,

reports came through of a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians.

In an unprecedented surprise attack,

the militant Hamas rulers of Gaza sent dozens of fighters into Israel

while a similar number and rising have been killed in Gaza

in Israel's military response.

The events have sent shockwaves through the world,

while Joe Biden denounced the attack in the strongest possible language.

and I would argue it's the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

the conflict in Israel and Gaza has political implications for the US.

What does the attack on Israel mean for the president personally

and for his administration?

And how will this change American policy and involvement in the Middle East?

This week I'm joined by one of the people who knows what it's like to be in the room

at the State Department of the US when Middle East violence erupts.

Aaron David Miller served for two decades as a State Department analyst,

negotiator and advisor on issues in the region.

He now serves as senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,

focusing on US foreign policy.

I'm Jonathan Friedland, columnist at The Guardian,

and this is Politics Weekly America.

when several Arab states launched a surprise attack on Israel in October 1973.

In fact, exactly 50 years and one day before Saturday's assault.

I'm sure that my colleagues experienced.

What do you think?

Just take us into what would have been running through the minds of your,

you know, successors, colleagues in the State Department when they

heard the news on Saturday of this Hamas attack on civilians in Israel.

The news, you know, we have to approach this entire issue with great humility.

And I'm sure my colleagues at the State Department are doing that.

What we do not know at this point, five days into this crisis, is quite stunning,

given the fact that the Israelis have a reputation for extraordinary coverage.

So this was breaking.

It was a rolling set of uncertainties.

In the first hour, Palestinian gunmen made their way penetrating

30-some kilometers into Israel.

The shock of what was transpiring must have been quite jarring.

And it also reflects, from the beginning of this crisis up until now, maybe it'll change,

I think, a sense on the part of the administration that there is little they can do to ameliorate it.

And the real question, I think, way too early to have that conversation publicly,

is every crisis, not everyone, at least on paper, every crisis might provide an opportunity

to do something that would avoid a return to status quo ante.

I just want to pick up that first thought, though, about the initial reaction.

And particularly in this administration, because Joe Biden, unlike some of his predecessors,

had signaled that his administration did not want to get immersed too deeply

in the business of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

It saw it as basically intractable and wanted, therefore, to have its focus

on a whole lot of other things in the world.

Given that frame, when the news came through on Saturday morning,

how would have officials reacted in terms of thinking,

this is a huge deal, we're going to have to throw all our energy at this,

or this is a file that we wanted really to put on the back burner?

How much did this cut through with them and say, right, we're going to have to channel

all our energies, White House, State Department, and focus on this?

But I remember vividly, this was a war at the borders.

There wasn't a civilian involvement here.

Once the magnitude of what was happening sunk in, I think putting out the fire probably

rapidly went the way of the dodo.

I suspect that there were a few, more than a few, who probably in the back of their mind

said, this is a consequence of our decision not to engage on this issue.

Two years ago, and this trope is rapidly gathering steam, that in fact, the Biden

administration is somehow complicit because it made a judgment that governing is about choosing.

They chose unwisely to focus on the interstate dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict rather

than on the truly heavy lift, which was, what are we going to do about the problem

of the much too promised land?

We'll make sure the Jewish and democratic state of Israel can defend itself today, tomorrow,

as we always have.

his vice president at one side, his secretary of state, Tony Blinken at the other, spoke

for about 10 minutes.

A lot of people were really struck by the strength, the vehemence of the president's

manner and his language.

He referred several times to what Hamas had done as evil and gave a message of unambiguous

support for Israel.

A lot of people have said it's the strongest, most impassioned set of remarks he's made

since becoming president.

What's your explanation for what was behind that?

I've been arguing this now over the last two years of this administration, let me put it

this way.

There are three motivating principles that have guided Joe Biden's approach to Israel

and the Arab-Israeli issue.

The first is what you saw on display yesterday.

The presidential model here is not Barack Obama.

It's Bill Clinton.

Even though they are a generation apart, I work for Clinton.

And literally, his love of Israel, I wouldn't use the term if he didn't use it, his love

of Rabin, particularly after the murder.

For half a century, Yitzhak Rabin risked his life to defend this country.

Today, he gave his life to bring it a lasting peace.

The pro-Israeli sensibilities of Joe Biden is deeply impressed on his political and emotional

DNA.

You saw that.

He is in love with the concept of Israel, the people of Israel, and committed and pledged

for decades to the security of Israel.

He is not in love with his government, and he is not in love with Benjamin Netanyahu,

who continues to be a source of enormous frustration and annoyance.

You notice he referred to the, quote, black hole of loss.

That's a personal.

That's Beau Biden.

That's the tragic accident of his wife and his daughter.

grief he has suffered and are famously part of his sort of political public persona now.

You think some of that was channeled into his reaction to what's going on in Israel?

These atrocities have been sickening.

Thank you.

The other two elements of what drives Biden, other than his persona, first is the politics.

The Republican Party, and I voted and worked for Republicans and Democrats.

You can consider this a partisan comment if you'd like.

But the Republican Party has emerged as the Israel right or wrong party.

Biden's own party is divided.

An increasing number of progressives beyond the handful of ideological progressives

who are willing to speak out and call for the imposition of costs and consequences for

Israeli behavior and a large number of mainstream Democrats who remain very supportive, but

are willing increasingly to speak out about what they don't like in regard to what the

Israelis are doing.

Given the fact that his prime directive between now and November 2024 is to be the Republican

nominee presumptive Donald Trump, he cannot afford to have the Republicans paint him as

hostile or unduly critical of Israel.

And every American president that I've known and or been around fighting with an Israeli

prime minister is messy.

It's awkward.

It's distracting.

And it can be politically costly.

You've talked about the politics.

What about the third element in all this, namely the actual concrete steps the administration

has to take?

One is a crisis, potential crisis, which could cause a war much greater than what we're seeing

between Israelis and Palestinians.

And who knows, it might escalate to such a level.

And that is how to manage Iran and the nuclear program.

And the other thing that is out there is not a crisis, but an opportunity.

How to facilitate something the Biden administration deeply wants, which is a U.S.

broker, Israeli-Saudi normalization.

Both the crisis and the opportunity demand, compel a functional relationship, for better

or for worse, with this Israeli government.

So for reasons of persona, politics and policy, there was no way Joe Biden was going to do

anything yesterday than demonstrate how close he is to Israel in the wake of this tragedy.

think Joe Biden could do and will do to follow up on the words?

One is reassurance.

So you send, what have the Israelis asked for?

Interceptors, small diameter bombs, a lot of ammunition.

This is not the 73 airlift, but their requests may increase.

And since we've probably drawn down stocks pre-positioned in Israel for Ukraine, so,

and it is fascinating the degree to which nothing in America lasts more than 15 minutes.

Remember the last time that there was any serious discussion or coverage of Ukraine?

It's disappeared.

It's disappeared because nothing in America lasts more than 15 minutes, particularly

with respect to the media.

Second, deterrence.

And third, I suspect, because you have some very smart folks there, my friend of 40 years,

Bill Burns is CIA director.

I guarantee even now they're thinking about the third lane, which is, I would describe

it to you as picking up the pieces.

in Israel's relationship with Saudi Arabia, where the Biden administration has been acting

as a kind of broker between the two countries.

I suppose that's a deal which is not going to happen anytime soon.

But just in terms of the politics of Joe Biden's particular place on this issue in

the Democratic Party, I mean, for a very long time, it's looked as if Biden is almost the

last of a kind of vanishing breed, a type of Democrat who is instinctively pro-Israel,

whose views were formed in the shadow of the Holocaust.

And that makes a contrast with today's younger Democrats, who I suppose aren't nearly so

pro-Israel.

I mean, do you see a fracturing, a potential fracturing here in the support there is for

Israel with, in some ways, Biden, the last one left, backing Israel?

It would fracture only if Joe Biden squeezes Benjamin Netanyahu.

It would fracture only if the administration decided somehow that they wanted to engage

Hamas in a negotiation.

Remember the prime directive, Jonathan, between now and 2024, which will affect the Democratic

Party.

It is simply this, the defeat of the presumptive Republican nominee who represents the greatest

and gravest threat to the American Republic.

Democrats will have to face a choice on any issue, whether or not they want to stand with

the president and create cohesive unity in the face of the need to defeat Donald Trump,

or whether they want to bicker with Joe Biden on this issue or that.

relations recently with Netanyahu.

They've been longtime friends before then, but recently with Netanyahu, still not actually

extended since he retook the prime minister's chair, still not had an invitation to meet

Joe Biden at the White House.

In a way, I'm taking from what you're saying that that all gets parked.

And similarly, borne out by what you were saying about not putting any pressure at all

to exercise restraint and no talk of Palestinian needs in this moment, instead saying it's

all about supporting Israel.

you tell me, as frustrated and annoyed as Biden is with Netanyahu, I would describe

their approach as passive aggressive.

There's no imposition of cost or consequence.

And fooling around with where are you going to see Bibi Netanyahu, I mean, he is going

to be in Washington.

You know that by the end of the year.

This crisis makes it absolutely, you know, if the sun's going to come up tomorrow and

it is, Bibi's going to be at that White House.

Now, absolutely, he's going to be there.

else that's going on.

In this case, it is related, and that is about where Congress fits in.

Right now, the Senate is in recess, although you've had a Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville,

holding up confirmation of hundreds of Pentagon appointments, holding back the Department

of Defense just over the position of Pentagon officials on abortion.

But more dramatically, you've had this vacuum where the House speaker should be, the Republican

led House.

They got rid of Kevin McCarthy's speaker last week, and it's meant there's not been

a speaker for the first few days of this crisis.

They have now, Republicans nominated Congressman Steve Scalise as speaker, although as you

and I speak, it's unclear whether he has going to get or has enough support to command a

majority.

I'm just wondering if all of this going on on Capitol Hill makes it quite difficult for

an American president to give a clear, focused foreign policy, because you could conceive

of actors in the region, in the Middle East, who look at all this domestic dysfunction

politically in the United States and think that therefore, Washington cannot be a dominant,

dependable player in the Middle East, the kind of player they once were.

And that perhaps has left almost a space, a vacuum into which events like the ones we

witnessed last weekend have flowed.

I mean, you tell me, what's your read of that?

and adversaries.

The allies are tearing their hair out.

The adversaries are rubbing their hands together, hoping, waiting for the return of Donald Trump

or his avatar.

But all politics, Jonathan, I've found in the region, mostly are local.

I think Hamas's calculations had very little to do with the state or fate of the Democratic

Party or Joe Biden's presidency.

Iran may be a different story.

They've engaged with the administration indirectly.

They've agreed to the de-escalatory understandings.

I think there has not been a proxy attack on American forces since July.

There was some talk that we were sort of not enforcing sanctions on exports to China as

stringently as we were before.

I don't think Iran wants a major confrontation with Israel because they know that the add-on

they're going to get almost certainly is a fight with the U.S., depending on how that

Iranian-Israeli escalation played out.

So I think that characterization of the administration's weakness and dysfunction, some of it was laid

to rest in the wake of Afghanistan, which was, I think, the lowest point in regard to

what allies thought about American competence.

Ukraine, Biden's view of Ukraine, his strategy, his policies, his leadership, I think that's

addressed some of the concern.

But the polls are what's driving the real concern.

It's not the weakness of this administration that people are worried about, our allies.

It's the onset of another Trump administration, and they have every reason to be worried.

It was a pleasure.

If you do want to know more about the situation on the ground in Israel and Gaza, do listen

to Thursday's episode of our sister podcast, Today in Focus, as Bethan McKernan reports

on the latest in the war there.

And here's from some of the civilians caught in the crossfire.

But for now, it is goodbye.

The producers were Danielle Stevens and Josh Anchana, and the executive producer this week

was Max Sanderson.

I'm Jonathan Friedland.

Thanks, as always, for listening.