Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial speech to Congress Wednesday came just days after President Joe Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection and as the death toll — now reaching more than forty thousand — of Palestinians in Gaza continues to climb.
Shortly after the atrocities committed by Hamas against Israelis on October 7, Biden traveled to Israel to literally embrace Netanyahu and offer his full support for his administration’s massive assault on Gaza. While occasionally offering stiff rhetoric to Netanyahu’s government, Biden has continued to regularly provide it with the diplomatic cover and military aid.
All the while, a question has remained: What explains Biden’s persistent, near-unconditional support for Netanyahu and the Israeli war machine?
There appears to be some consensus that Biden is driven by a belief in Zionism and a deep emotional attachment to Israel. He has “a deep-seated, personal commitment to Israel that goes back to his first years as a U.S. senator,” according to the Washington Post. Biden is a “true believer” who “alone among modern American presidents has an emotional relationship with the idea of Israel, the people of Israel, the security of Israel,” according to the author of a Biden book, speaking on MSNBC. And Biden has told audiences for decades that his commitment to Israel is “personal” and “began at my father’s dinner table.”
The reality is more complicated. Over four decades, Biden has also established a reputation as a politician who can choose paths of least resistance, of giving “different talks to different people,” as one voter in New Castle County, Delaware, put it in 1978. Or, as…
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Auteur: Branko Marcetic
