“And let there be no doubt, the United States has Israel’s back”, US president Joe Biden proclaimed to the world on Tuesday.
In a forceful denunciation of the Palestinian group Hamas, he pledged Washington would make sure “the Jewish and democratic state of Israel” can defend itself and warned any other country or organisation against trying to take advantage of the current situation.
The president sought to ensure there was not a sliver of daylight between his administration and the Israeli government in the aftermath of the attacks by Hamas forces on Saturday in which over 1,200 people, including at least 14 Americans, were killed and more taken hostage.
However, only a few months ago there were serious tensions between the White House and the right wing government of Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
In July following a call between Biden and Netanyahu, the White House said the president had expressed concern about the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The Biden administration has also been deeply unhappy at Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, which critics say could undermine Israeli democracy. In his conversation in July with Netanyahu, Biden “stressed the need to take measures to maintain the viability of a two-state solution” to the Israel/Palestine dispute.
However, on Tuesday Biden’s speech concentrated on protecting Israel’s security. The president seemed visibly angry at the details of the attacks in Israel and drew parallels with “the worst rampages of Isis”. There was no call for restraint or for both sides to take a step back from the brink.
Biden said Israel has not only a right, but also “a duty to respond to these vicious attacks”. He had told Netanyahu, he said, that “if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive, and overwhelming”.
However, he did say that the two had discussed “how democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law”.
This conversation took place as European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned the imposition of a total blockade of Gaza by Israel would break international law.
For Biden the Israel crisis poses potentially significant problems with an election only 12 months away. A wider war in the Middle East could cause further economic turmoil in the US and even potentially draw in American forces.
The crisis may also undermine one of his administration’s key foreign policy goals – facilitating a landmark agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
And there are obvious political dangers posed by potentially up to 20 Americans being held hostage by Hamas. After the attacks, Biden quickly came under fire from his critics who linked it to a recent deal which saw Iran receive back $6 billion in frozen assets in return for the release of a number of prisoners held by Tehran.
It won’t take long before opposition Republicans criticise the president about the American prisoners in captivity in Gaza, particularly if Hamas begins executing those it is holding, as it has threatened to do.
Biden will well remember how the crisis over hostages taken by Iran – a supporter Hamas – in the 1970s led to Jimmy Carter being a one-term Democrat president.