Joe Biden's love affair with Israel will pick up where it left off
Ali Abunimah Power Suits 8 November 2020
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has every reason to expect Joe Biden will
deliver for Israel, just as the Obama administration did. (US Embassy
Jerusalem)
With Donald Trump still disputing his loss of the US presidential election,
there has been a lot of attention to which foreign leaders congratulated the
winners after the race was called on Saturday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his time, waiting until well
after other world leaders had recognized Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the
victors.
But finally, on Sunday, Netanyahu joined the club.
"Joe, we've had a long and warm personal relationship for nearly 40 years,
and I know you as a great friend of Israel," Netanyahu wrote in a tweet
addressing President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris.
"I look forward to working with both of you to further strengthen the
special alliance between the US and Israel."
It was undoubtedly another awkward moment for Netanyahu, whose close
identification with Trump's ultra-nationalist, white supremacist populism
has been a hallmark of the last few years.
But Netanyahu is right about Biden's unconditional, career-long commitment
to Israel.
Back in 1986, Biden told the Senate that Israel is "the best $3 billion
investment we make."
"Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent
an Israel to protect our interests in the region," Biden asserted.
It's a theme he returns to time and again.
"Israel is the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East,"
Biden told an interviewer in 2007.
"When I was a young senator, I'd say, 'If I were a Jew I'd be a Zionist,'"
Biden added. "I am a Zionist, you don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist."
Lovers' quarrel
Biden's love for Israel has survived everything that has been thrown at it.
This includes the public humiliation Netanyahu's government inflicted on
Biden in 2010, when he was vice president.
Israel apparently timed the announcement of a new colony in occupied East
Jerusalem specifically to embarrass Biden, who was visiting Israel in an
effort to advance the Obama administration's "peace" efforts.
Obama had been urging Israel to pause settlement construction to give the
initiative a chance.
Yet the lovers' quarrel was quickly forgotten.
Israel went on to build almost as many settlement homes on occupied
Palestinian land during the Obama years as it did during the George W. Bush
administration.
Not only that, but as Israel killed an average of 11 children per day during
its summer 2014 assault on Gaza, the Obama-Biden administration resupplied
Israel with munitions.
True friends don't let friends run out of missiles when they are bombing an
impoverished, defenseless refugee population caged in a ghetto.
During its 51-day assault, Israel killed more than 2,200 Palestinians.
The Obama-Biden administration sprung into action to thwart Palestinians
from seeking justice for Israeli war crimes at the International Criminal
Court.
Anyone hoping for something different this time around should prepare for
quick disappointment.
Biden adopts Trump policies
Biden has already endorsed some of Trump's signature pro-Israel policies.
He has welcomed the normalization deals the Trump administration brokered
between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
Biden has pledged not to move the US embassy from Jerusalem back to Tel
Aviv.
Harris also has her own long history of support for Israel.
Yet there is a slight shift in tone.
In a pre-election interview, Kamala Harris pledged that the Biden
administration would restore humanitarian aid for Palestinians cut by Trump,
and re-open the US consulate in East Jerusalem.
Restoring aid to East Jerusalem's hospitals or the refugee agency UNRWA
would be welcome - to the extent that it actually helps Palestinians in
need.
But at best it would mark a return to a status quo where Palestinians are
kept on life support while Israel continues to aggressively steal their land
and violate their rights with impunity.
"Joe and I also believe in the worth and value of every Palestinian and
every Israeli, and we will work to ensure that Palestinians and Israelis
enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and democracy," Harris
said.
"We are committed to a two-state solution, and we will oppose any unilateral
steps that undermine that goal. We will also oppose annexation and
settlement expansion," she added.
Leaving aside that the two-state solution is dead and buried, there's no
reason to take even these minimal commitments at face value.
Democrats always say they oppose settlements and want to see a two-state
solution, but as eight years of the Obama-Biden administration demonstrated,
that never translates into action.
In his 2018 memoir, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser under the
Obama-Biden administration, staunchly defends his boss against accusations
that he was too supportive of Palestinians.
Rhodes writes that the critics who accused Obama of being not sufficiently
pro-Israel "ignored the fact that he [Obama] wasn't doing anything tangible
for the Palestinians."
Record aid package
Indeed, one of the Obama-Biden administration's final acts was to reward
Israel's settlement spree and massacres with the biggest military aid
package in history - a minimum of $38 billion over 10 years.
Now, according to The Jerusalem Post, "Israel plans to reach out to US
President-elect Joe Biden's administration in the coming months to begin
discussing the formulation of a new long-term military aid plan."
"We will want to talk about a new package and program," a senior Israeli
official told the newspaper. "The new plan will need to take into account
the changing threats and challenges we face in the Middle East."
In other words, Israel plans to increase its demands on US taxpayers.
Whenever a new administration comes in, there is a flurry of speculation and
misplaced optimism about who it will appoint and what it will do to revive
the "peace process."
No one should be distracted by these parlor games.
Netanyahu's words of welcome for Biden are sincere, because he knows the
incoming American president will do all he can to deliver for Israel, just
like every Democrat and every Republican before him.
