Hamas-Israel war: Meet America’s first Zionist president, Joe Biden

"I don't believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist."

So said US president Joe Biden at a meeting of the Israeli war cabinet when he visited the country twelve days after the country was shaken to its core when militants from Hamas broke through the wall that separates Israel and Gaza and murdered 1,400 people in a series of massacres of savage brutality.

Even for a president whose deep affinity with Israel goes back decades, it was an unusual assertion to make to a roomful of generals and officials as the Israeli air force bombed buildings in Gaza City and levelled entire neighbourhoods in raids human rights groups denounced as collective punishment.

Biden’s assertion drew approving nods from the members of the war cabinet and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a Reuters report highlighting the “I am a Zionist” assertion. It raises a question on the extent to which unconditional US support will shape the future not only of Gaza but also the 75-year-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

In a speech after returning to Washington, Biden stressed that “the vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas” and said he had told the Israeli government not to be “blinded by rage” and repeat the kind of mistakes the US had made after the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001.

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The Israelis paid little apparent attention. After fierce bombing attacks and a complete siege of Gaza, cutting off water, fuel, electricity, and food, the government launched a ground offensive and asked more than a million people to leave their homes in North Gaza and move south.

By the end of October, more than 8,000 people had been killed, according to the Gazan health ministry. 

Netanyahu rebuffed calls for a ceasefire from an array of humanitarian groups, the United Nations General Assembly and the UN Secretary-General. A ceasefire would be tantamount to surrendering to terrorism, he told reporters, appealing for other nations to back Israel in its fight against “the enemies of civilisation itself.”

Israel’s view of the conflict is not universally shared around the world – the past three weeks have seen tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators taking to the streets in major world cities, including London, Istanbul, New York, Baghdad and Rome. In London alone, crowds were estimated at 100,000. 

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Demands ranged from a ceasefire to an end of Israel’s occupation of land it seized in 1967 after winning a war against a coalition of Arab states. 

There is no accurate way to measure this but judging from television images of protesting crowds, Israel may be making progress militarily but it is losing the war for public opinion, thanks to a flood of horrific images from overcrowded Gaza hospitals where many of the patients are badly wounded children, bloodied and terrified.

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Back in Washington, the self-declared Zionist president is facing criticism from prominent members of his own Democratic Party about the way Israel is conducting the second phase of its offensive, involving tanks and ground troops. 

A statement from 25 Senators stressed the urgent need to get fuel into Gaza so hospitals and water pumping stations can function. The question “what next”? if Israel succeeds in wiping out Hamas, which runs the government in Gaza, is often asked but yields no convincing response either from Washington or Tel Aviv.

Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy reflected the fears of many when he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “It feels pretty likely that  a long, open-ended Israeli operation – like our disastrous campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan – that cuts of fuel and water and internet and results in widespread civilian harm will create as many Hamas militants as it eliminates.”

One of Biden’s most loyal supporters, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said in a television interview, that she feared Biden’s attitude on the war could hurt him politically and was out of sync with a considerable segment of the voting population.

“They support the right for Israel to defend itself, to exist,” she said. “But they do not support a war crime exchanged for another war crime.”

This is not a lone voice. A Gallup poll conducted over three weeks in October indicated, as the company put it, that “Democrats’ approval of Biden fell sharply in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks by Hamas and Biden’s promise of full support for Israel on the same day.”

A series of recent polls have shown that America’s unwavering support for Israel is unpopular with voters under 35. Last week, students at dozens of colleges walked out of class as part of a nationwide effort to promote changes in Middle East policy by the group Students for Justice in Palestine.

But support for Israel continues where it counts most: On October 30, the Republican-dominated House of Representatives proposed a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel.

(Disclaimer: The views of the writer do not represent the views of WION or ZMCL. Nor does WION or ZMCL endorse the views of the writer.)

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