There is a time and a place to call out US President Joe Biden’s foreign policy failures, of which there are many. But the criticism of Biden during his important visit to Israel over petty non-issues is damaging and irresponsible at a time when the strategic US-Israel relationship is under unprecedented attack in the US.
As Israelis, we should embrace Biden’s visit for its importance in continuing the alliance between Israel and the US, and reserve criticism for decisions that actively undermine peacemaking, such as increasing the funding to UNRWA.
Despite recent challenges to US-Israel relations, in particular from the extreme Left of the Democratic Party, President Biden’s visit to Israel was wildly successful. Biden oversaw a joint declaration between the US and Israel which reaffirmed the two nations’ commitment to cooperating against Iran, fighting BDS, and jointly ensuring that Israel’s security needs are met.
He also paved the path for the next step toward normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, with Saudi opening airspace to all Israeli commercial flights. Biden also received the Presidential Medal of Honor from President Isaac Herzog.
Yet there was controversy over Biden’s decision to remove the Israeli flag from his motorcade when he drove through Jerusalem to Bethlehem for his meeting with Palestinian officials.
Criticism of Biden
Right-wing MKs such as Orit Struck criticized Biden harshly over the US refusal to allow Israeli officials to accompany Biden to visit a hospital in east Jerusalem, where he announced $100 million in aid to Palestinian healthcare, claiming that the refusal equaled a US rejection of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem.
On social media, the decision to remove Israeli flags from the US president’s vehicle was criticized for the same. But as an analyst who has been harshly critical of Biden, I believe that this accusation is absurd and unhelpful. Right-wing criticism of Biden over trivial issues like this is purely political posturing and they undermine Israel’s relationship with the US.
The truth is that President Biden easily could have criticized Israel on a number of issues, and doing so would have scored him points with the more extreme faction of the Democratic party as well.
Instead, he reaffirmed his, and the US’s, commitment to Israel. In his interview with Yonit Levy of Channel 12 News, when asked about members of his own party who have accused Israel of apartheid, the president responded by stating they “are few and they are wrong.”
Additionally, while his presidency is certainly not as hawkish as former president Donald Trump’s, he has not reversed the decision to move the embassy (or pledged to); nor has he changed course on Trump’s recognition of settlements.
The Biden administration also has not opened a consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem (though they have discussed it), nor have they reopened a consulate of the Palestinians in Washington, DC which was shuttered under Trump. Does that sound like a president who is against Israel?
During this trip, Biden reiterated bipartisan support for the State of Israel, he affirmed the importance of Zionism, and the White House issued a statement on Jerusalem specifically stating, “President Biden reiterated the US position that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and that it continues to be the policy of the United States that the specific boundaries of Jerusalem must be resolved through final status negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.”
President Biden has been a lifelong friend of the State of Israel, and that should be acknowledged. He has also been committed to a two-state solution for virtually the entirety of his career, a position which he restated during this presidential visit. Unfortunately, Biden also announced that the US would massively increase funding to the UN refugee agency for Palestinians, UNRWA.
UNRWA
THE PROBLEM with this is that UNRWA’s existence is blatantly contradictory to a two-state solution, because it refuses to settle Palestinian refugees based on an unrealistic dream that descendants of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1948 will return en masse to the land and take over Israel. It is the only such agency that defines children and grandchildren of refugees as “refugees.”
UNRWA actively perpetuates the conflict, giving credence to the self-destructive Palestinian rejectionism that has prevented Palestinians from having their own state for over 70 years. As such, the only action of the Biden administration during this trip that deserves criticism is the funding of UNRWA. Funding UNRWA isn’t funding peace, it’s funding the conflict.
The truth is that the US-Israel relationship should be above partisan bickering, and all the chatter about flags on vehicles or who accompanies Biden on a hospital visit is much ado about nothing.
President Biden has always been a staunch supporter of Israel, and any criticism Israelis have against him should be centered on the issues that actually push peace further away, such as funding UNRWA – not insinuations about what it might mean that a flag was removed from a vehicle. The US-Israel relationship is too important to be dragged through the media cycle for such inconsequential issues.
The writer is the CEO of Social Lite Creative LLC and a human rights activist.