U.S. President Joe Biden leaves with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Vice President Kamala Harris after speaking in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, about the war between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, on Oct. 10.Evan Vucci/The Associated Press
In the days since Hamas attacked Israel, killing at least 1,300 people and abducting 200 more, U.S. President Joe Biden has been unequivocal. He has condemned the invasion as “pure, unadulterated evil,” offered any help Israel asks for, and authorized shipments of ammunition and missiles. “We’re with Israel,” he said this week at the White House. “Let’s make no mistake.”
In committing to the fight, Mr. Biden must confront a growing list of problems in the war: the threat of Iran or Hezbollah entering the fray, the presence of U.S. citizens among Hamas’s hostages and a worsening humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. Informing it all is Mr. Biden’s determination to wield U.S. power on the world stage to defend a key ally and fight anti-Semitism.
Here are four factors weighing on the U.S.’s actions.
Iran, Hezbollah and other enemies of Israel
One of Mr. Biden’s first decisions following Hamas’s attack was to dispatch warships and fighter jets to the eastern Mediterranean. He warned Iran to “be careful,” and to anyone looking to take advantage of the attack on Israel, he said, “I have one word: don’t.”
While Tehran is the chief backer of both Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which has sporadically fired mortars and rockets into Israel this week, the White House says it so far has no evidence of Iranian involvement in last Saturday’s attack. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, also denied that his country was behind it.
“I don’t think the Biden administration, or the Iranian government, is interested in escalating or expanding the conflict,” Sina Azodi, an expert on Iran at George Washington University, told The Globe and Mail.
The White House is also scrambling to deflect Republican criticism for making a deal last month that unfroze US$6-billion of Iranian assets in exchange for Tehran releasing six imprisoned Americans. The U.S. government has said Iran has not actually received any of that money so far and that it can only be used for humanitarian purposes.
U.S. citizens held hostage
Hamas killed at least 27 Americans in last Saturday’s attack, with 14 more unaccounted for and potentially abducted. The group has threatened to execute the hostages and disseminate video of their deaths.
The U.S. has dispatched special forces to the region but is keeping quiet about any potential rescue plan. “If I told you, I wouldn’t be able to get them home,” Mr. Biden told a group of Jewish community leaders at the White House.
One possibility is that Israel will try to get hostages released in exchange for freeing Palestinian prisoners, as it has in the past. Another is that Israel and the U.S. are planning a military operation to try to get them out. It is so far unclear how the situation will affect Israeli plans for a ground invasion of Gaza.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza
Israel has cut off supplies of food, water and electricity to the Gaza Strip, which it says it will not restore until hostages are released. The 2.3 million people living in the besieged territory, which is about the size of Montreal, have mostly been unable to leave since 2007, when Hamas took over the enclave, and Israel and Egypt started a blockade.
The Israeli Defense Force’s retaliatory airstrikes have killed 1,500 people in Gaza since last Saturday. Videos showed scores of buildings turned to rubble and the United Nations said 340,000 people have been forced from their homes.
On Friday, Israel gave the more than one million people living in Gaza City 24 hours to evacuate to the territory’s south before an expected intensification of the attack, a timeline the UN says will be impossible to meet.
Mr. Biden and other U.S. officials have called on Israel to respect the laws of war, including allowing civilians to escape the fighting. But some observers are skeptical Washington will do anything to mitigate the unfolding catastrophe.
“Cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel – these are war crimes, and I would have expected the U.S. to step in and say ‘don’t do this,’ but they didn’t,” said Diana Battu, a former advisor to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. “I used to think there were red lines, but I don’t think so any longer.”
Backing up a U.S. ally
In the wake of the U.S.’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Mr. Biden has seemed determined to show himself firm in foreign affairs. The President has dispatched more than US$75-billion in military and other aid to Ukraine since Russia began its full-scale invasion last year, and has rallied NATO countries to back Kyiv.
On Israel, as on Ukraine, Mr. Biden has framed the war in moral terms. In one speech, he described Hamas’s atrocities: families, including infants, killed; grandparents taken hostage. “The brutality of Hamas, this bloodthirstiness, brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS,” he said. In another, he described taking his children and grandchildren to visit the Dachau concentration camp.
While Mr. Biden has backed Israel throughout his long political career – he met with prime minister Golda Meir in 1973, during his first term as a senator – he has previously not focused intensively on the file during his presidency.
“He made a very careful strategic calculation that expending political capital on restarting an Israeli-Palestinian peace process would end in failure and be a loss for him,” Dahlia Sheindlin, a Tel Aviv-based political consultant, said in an interview.
His main initiative was an effort to broker a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a bid that seems moot now. Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman even spoke this week with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the second-in-command of his country’s regional rival.
Domestically, there is a broad consensus among U.S. politicians on supporting Israel, though Mr. Biden may still face some roadblocks. Congress is currently gridlocked because Republican infighting is preventing the House of Representatives from electing a Speaker.