Joe Biden’s trip to Israel this week is without precedent in US history. Never before has a US president rushed to a conflict zone so quickly after the outbreak of a war, much less one in which no US troops are directly engaged. The unprecedented nature of the visit is a testament to the stakes. Israel is at war after suffering the worst violence in its history, and a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the threat of wider regional war remains ever-present. Into the maelstrom comes Biden, hoping to shape what comes next – and making decisions which will reverberate for decades to come.
It’s clear that Biden’s first priority is to signal his unwavering support for Israel. From the opening moments of the crisis, Biden has made it clear that he will provide Tel Aviv with both moral and material support in its battle against Hamas. A presidential visit is intended as another signal that Biden stands with Israel, but sending that signal also carries risks. At a time when anger is boiling over and casualties are mounting in Gaza, Biden is essentially giving the US seal of approval to what Israel is doing – and to whatever it will do next.
That’s one reason why Biden’s other goals on this trip are all connected with the need to use US influence to restrain and modulate Israel’s actions. Biden is betting that effusive public solidarity with Israel – a strategy the administration calls “hugging them close” – will give him the credibility to influence the calculations of Israel’s leaders in private. But Israeli leaders seem set on the basic contours of an approach – a war to eradicate Hamas, even at the cost of a regional conflict – that is not necessarily compatible with the goals of US policymakers.
The first example of this is the difficulty of achieving an improvement in the humanitarian situation, which is one of the main aims of Biden’s trip. Civilians in Gaza face two main problems: lack of access to both humanitarian aid and the basic necessities of life, and the risk of being caught in the crossfire between Israel and armed Palestinian factions. The US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, has been furiously at work in the region trying to broker an agreement on providing aid, and there are hints that one might be agreed to during Biden’s visit. But reaching an agreement is one thing – ensuring it is actually observed in the weeks to come is another.
Protecting Palestinian civilians from direct harm is even more difficult. Biden will seek to persuade Israeli leaders to adopt rules of war that minimize civilian harm, but it’s unclear how far Israel’s government can or will go to protect civilian life for as long as it maintains its goal of destroying Hamas. Many US analysts are pointing to the US military’s experience of intense urban warfare in the Iraqi cities of Mosul and Falluja as a potential guide for action. But these battles had a crucial difference from the one in Gaza: civilians were, for the most part, able to leave. Hemmed in between Israel, Egypt and the sea, Gazans cannot – and as the explosion overnight at the al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital shows, nowhere within Gaza itself is safe.
Another purpose of Biden’s trip is to send a strong signal to Iran and groups such as Hezbollah that if they enter the conflict against Israel, they are likely to also find themselves fighting the United States. There are risks here, too. Anger against Israel is spiking in the region, and if Israel enters Gaza then the pressure on other actors to join the conflict will be immense. If deterrence fails, then the US could find itself fighting another war in the Middle East – one that the administration desperately wants to avoid, and which could poison attitudes towards the United States for a generation. A group of Arab leaders have already canceled a planned meeting with Biden in the wake of the hospital explosion, demonstrating how isolated the administration is becoming – even before the Israeli ground offensive has begun.
A third goal of Biden’s trip is to try to persuade Israel to avoid the mistakes that the United States made in the opening years of the war on terror. The administration is already pushing Israel to look beyond its desire for revenge and to think about the political end state that it wants to achieve. What comes after Hamas? And how can Hamas be removed from power without causing so much civilian harm that another similar movement simply rises in its place?
Unfortunately, as Washington knows all too well, such long-term considerations are rarely at the forefront of leaders’ minds when responding to an attack, particularly one as horrific as that suffered by Israel. Biden seems to want the United States to take on the role of the wiser older sibling of Israel, dispensing advice based on its own experience. But there is no guarantee that Israel will listen, particularly because its leaders seem set first and foremost on restoring their credibility through overwhelming violence.
More than anything else, it is this uncertainty about what will happen next which hangs so heavily over Biden’s trip. Whatever may come, Biden has signaled that he intends to tie the fortunes and reputation of the United States closely to those of Israel. What remains to be seen is whether that will translate into real influence for the better – or whether it will just suck the US deeper into a maelstrom over which it has little control.
Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States and the creator of America Explained, a podcast and newsletter
