President Joe Biden is making his second trip to a war zone of his administration as House Republicans try to end two weeks of Congress being without a speaker.
But while Biden is poised to appear presidential in Israel, he has to tread carefully, not only because of security concerns but also geopolitics and domestic politics a week after Hamas‘s deadly terrorist attacks.
BIDEN SHIFTS FOCUS AWAY FROM DOMESTIC AFFAIRS AS ISRAEL WAR INTENSIFIES
The trip, before Israel conducts a likely lengthy ground invasion into the Gaza Strip, is Biden’s attempt to demonstrate support for an important ally and make a stand against terrorism. Biden is also seeking to stop the war from becoming a broader conflict with Hezbollah along Lebanon‘s border and Iran, in addition to working with Egypt to open its border with Gaza to replenish depleted water, food, medical, and fuel supplies.
Simultaneously, the Biden administration has underscored humanitarianism, an acknowledgment that public sentiment could change the longer the war goes on, as it has regarding Ukraine for Republicans, and Biden’s trip ties him to Israel. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has already canceled a meeting with Biden over a disputed Gaza hospital strike.
Rutgers University history, journalism, and media studies professor David Greenberg downplayed Biden’s political risks during the war and before next year’s election.
“Showing solidarity with Israel is a political win,” Greenberg told the Washington Examiner. “As with Ukraine, I think his experience, his view of the world, and his humane instincts are working in his favor.”
Support for Israel and to a lesser extent Ukraine, to which Biden made a separate trip in February, has created newfound urgency for House Republicans to pick a speaker, but House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) did not receive the required 217 votes on the floor Tuesday during his first ballot.
“We’re on day 14 without a speaker of the House, one month out from another potential Republican shutdown, and chaos reigns over the House GOP,” Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said. “Americans across the country and our allies abroad are watching as the chaos caucus makes a mockery of our institutions — and continues to prove they’re incapable of governing.”
Without a functioning Congress, the Senate cannot capitalize on momentum, spearheaded by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), to prevent the release of $6 billion in seized Iranian assets. A bipartisan group of 110 House lawmakers is also calling on Biden to take a tougher stance on Iran, including introducing new sanctions. Biden is expected to ask for $100 billion for Israel and Ukraine aid, as well as border funding, later this week.
Specifically, during Biden’s second trip to Israel as president, the first since last summer, Biden should demand that all of Hamas’s roughly 200 hostages be released immediately and without preconditions, according to Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser for Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“He should be clear that the U.S. holds Iran responsible for this massacre and will consider legitimate military responses if all hostages are not freed immediately,” the White House National Security Council‘s countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction director during the Trump administration said.
But Biden should also emphasize that Israel has the United States’s “complete and unconditional support” for any future military operations and is prepared to use force against Iran if it escalates the situation, per Goldberg.
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“Third, since Iran is complicit in last week’s massacre, we will be revoking all $50 billion in sanctions relief provided this year, and we will trigger the snapback of U.N. sanctions,” he suggested. “And fourth, we will no longer allow countries to provide safe harbor or support to Hamas. Qatar and Turkey must shut down their offices and turn over Hamas leaders.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Biden’s trip to Israel the same day the president postponed travel to Colorado to promote his economic policies, or Bidenomics. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Biden declined to invite to the White House last month over Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, extended his own invitation to Biden to come to Israel last weekend. Biden was scheduled to meet with King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Amman, Jordan, but that sit-down has also been canceled.
