World anger mounts, so does Gaza war

When he took office in January 2021, US President Joe Biden announced, “America is back!” Back from Donald Trump’s destructive dramas, deletion of traditional policies, and disastrous decisions. During his campaign, Biden had pledged to reverse Trump’s racist approach to Muslims, rejoin international organisations Trump renounced, restore relations with NATO which Trump downgraded, and reconcile with countries Trump alienated. Biden soon honoured some of these promises by simply signing executive decrees.

Biden did not, however, reverse Trump’s anti-Palestine and anti-Iran policies, creating conditions for the rise of tensions in the region and Israel’s deadly and destructive war on Gaza.

On Palestine, Biden partially restored UN funding for development aid for the West Bank and Gaza and the UN agency caring for Palestinian refugees, which Trump cancelled, but did not return the US consulate in occupied East Jerusalem or allow the reopening of Palestine Liberation Organisation’s mission in Washington, both of which Trump closed. While Biden endorsed the Trump-rejected two-state solution involving the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, Biden made no serious effort to relaunch negotiations abandoned in 2014.

At the time Trump pulled the US out of the 2015 agreement for limiting Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for lifting sanctions, Iran was in full compliance and had received limited sanctions relief. This was because the Obama administration dishonoured the deal by retaining secondary sanctions on firms and banks dealing with Iran. Bad faith did not begin with Trump. It must be remembered that Biden was number two in the Obama administration which negotiated and concluded the agreement.

Once in office, instead of returning to it, Biden demanded concessions Iran had rejected during negotiations on the original six-party deal to which the UK, France, China, Russia, and Germany were also parties. After months of wrangling, Iran went to the polls and elected hardliner Ebrahim Raisi as its president. His victory sidelined the reformists under previous President Hassan Rouhani who had signed up to the deal. Further negotiations not only failed to achieve Iran’s return but also prompted Iran to shun its commitments and build on its nuclear programme. As could have been foreseen, relations between the US and Iran have soured to the lowest level ever.

Abandoning the Palestinians to limbo enabled Israel to develop a false sense of security while it tightened its grip on East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. This, ineluctably, led to rising West Bank resistance and the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel. Alienated Iran encouraged allies, Hizbollah, the Iraqi militias, and the Houthis to pile paramilitary pressure on the US to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

This has not worked as Biden has continued to arm and provide political backing to Israel whatever it does. His stubborn stance has jeopardised his re-election. Opinion polls show that he and presumptive rival Trump are nearly evenly matched with voters. Trump could very well lose the popular vote (as he did in 2016 to Hillary Clinton) but win the deciding Electoral College vote.

Last week, Biden visited the swing-state of Michigan where he won the endorsement of the autoworkers’ union in the Detroit area. The union’s backing was never in doubt because he joined their strike lines demanding that companies grant them higher wages. However, he dared not go to the Detroit suburbs of Dearborn and Hamtramck as Arab-American residents deeply resent his Gaza policy and activists have called for a boycott of Biden in the Michigan Democrat primary. They have fanned out to Arab-American communities across the US to promote rejection of Biden.

Chicago has joined Detroit, Atlanta, and San Francisco to call for a Gaza ceasefire and humanitarian aid for the strip’s beleaguered 2.3 million Palestinians. Among the Chicago notables pushing for the resolution was veteran Black activist Reverend Jesse Jackson who takes the view, “Justice is not justice until it is justice for all.” These words have become a slogan of the pro-Palestinian movement which has millions of supporters among disadvantaged Blacks. A December poll revealed that only 50 per cent of Black voters favour Biden, a sharp shift from 86 per cent in mid-2021.

A poll conducted last month showed that 50 per cent overall of US adults believe Israel exceeded the bounds in its Gaza war. While 64 per cent of Biden’s Democrats take this line, a rising number of independents and Republicans agree. A whopping 85 per cent fear a wider war.

Biden is accused of enabling Israel’s onslaught on Gaza by providing political support at the UN, supplying essential weaponry, and promising $14 billion in addition to the $3.8 billion the US gives Israeli annually to its military machine.

On the domestic front, Judge Jeffrey S. White of the US District Court in Oakland, California, ruled last week, “It is every individual’s obligation to confront the current siege in Gaza.” He delivered this ruling in response to a lawsuit brought by Palestinian-Americans, Gazans, and the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq calling on Biden, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cease their support for Israel’s war on Gaza.

Judge White reluctantly turned down the case because he did not have the authority to try it due to the separation of powers between the judicial, executive and legislative branches of government. However, he stated that as the International Court of Justice, “has found, it is plausible that Israel’s conduct amounts to genocide. This Court implores Defendants to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”

On the international front, more than 800 US and European officials have published a statement warning that their governments’ support for Israel in the war could amount to “grave violations of international law.” They argue their governments could be responsible for “one of the worst human catastrophes of this century” and complain that their advice has been ignored. An unidentified serving US official told the BBC that “we’re not failing to prevent something, we’re actively complicit.” The statement was signed by officials from the US, the European Union, and 11 European countries, including Britain, France, and Germany.