By Wesam Bahrani

Biden best suited for Israelis

May 8, 2024 - 21:43
Incumbent American leader oversaw mass suffering of Palestinians

TEHRAN- Joe Biden has proven to be the most suited American President in modern times to serve the vicious interests and agenda of the Israeli occupation.

While all U.S. presidents have historically provided unequivocal support for the Israelis despite the regime’s violation of international law, Biden stands out. 

President Barack Obama was a staunch Israeli supporter and provided Tel Aviv with a record level of military aid; at the time of his presidency, yet criticized the Israelis over illegal settlements by abstaining to veto a UN Security Council resolution on the illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. 

The tension was mostly believed to be personal between Obama and Netanyahu who was also Israeli prime minister at the time rather than a split between the U.S. and Israel. 

Nevertheless, the current incumbent American leader has overseen an unprecedented number of Israeli massacres and acts of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past seven months. 

The United Nations says the military assault on the civilian population in Gaza is unprecedented since the Second World War. 

Biden publicly set a “red line” for Tel Aviv over any armed ground incursion in the southernmost city of Rafah, which is crammed with internally displaced Palestinians while describing the Israeli bombings as “indiscriminate”. 

These have all proven to be empty words with no action to back them up as the Israeli military has crossed that red line by carrying out a ground assault on Rafah, where around half the population – some 600,000 – are children. 

The “indiscriminate” bombings across Gaza that have killed and injured a record number of civilians in such a short space of time have all been allowed to go ahead by the Biden administration without any punitive measures. 

Biden, who is a self-proclaimed “proud Zionist” had the influence and power to end the killing of children and allow water and food to reach a starving Palestinian population but chose to sit back and watch on. 

The United Nations has been warning about the famine in Gaza for months, and yet less humanitarian aid is entering the Strip today than ever before. 

The simplest measures Biden could have taken was to restrict military aid months ago to ease the level of Palestinian suffering, but he has failed to make that move despite UN agencies repeatedly warning about the plight of malnourished women and children inside the enclave. 

The public remarks of the U.S. president are certainly at odds with his actions or lack of action. 

It’s difficult to judge whether a different U.S. president would have taken a different approach as all American leaders have fully backed Israel at times of war and peace. 

But experts say there was usually some level of pressure on the Israeli regime behind the scenes in previous wars that Tel Aviv had instigated. None of that pressure is believed to have been put on the Israelis under Biden, though the ongoing war on Gaza is the deadliest. 

More importantly, this genocide in Gaza is happening under Biden’s watch. 

The public criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government by Biden and some Democrats, Chuck Schumer in particular, who said he feared the Israeli occupation risks becoming a “pariah” does not represent a shift in U.S. policy toward Israel. 

What it does represent is a shift in the U.S. concern about the image of Washington’s staunchest ally in West Asia. 

There are differences among supporters of the Israeli occupation regime on the best method to ensure that the Zionist project would survive. 

Analysts have pointed to the example of readers who believe left-leaning Israeli news outlets such as Haaretz are sympathetic toward the Palestinians, while these outlets have the same Zionist agenda but view the policies of reaching the mission in a different manner to other Israelis. 

It is safe to say the image of the Israeli regime has been dealt a heavy blow at an international level. There is no doubt about that. From the mass weekly protesters in the streets of the West that have turned into a U.S.-led student movement at university campuses to Latin American countries cutting diplomatic ties with Israel. 

That is the concern of President Biden and his fellow Democrats in power. How global public perception of the Israelis is affecting the status of the regime and America’s number one ally amid the genocide in Gaza?  

There is a lot of work to be done, if it can be achieved at all, for Tel Aviv to recover its international reputation. The more women and children that are massacred by the Israeli army, the more difficult it will be for America to speak about human rights and international law. 

The dying Western argument of the Israelis having the right to self-defense has been thrown out of the window. As Brazil’s President Lula once said, this is a war between a “highly prepared army, and women and children”. 
 

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