It might seem like an overstatement to argue that President Joe Biden’s tightrope policy regarding support for Israel – but not to be seen as too pro-Israel – is more dangerous for Jews on US campuses than for Israeli policy in Gaza. But there is at least a degree of truth to it.
Regarding the Gaza war, Israel is in a far better place than it would have been without the support of the US administration. Public proclamations of differences between Washington and Jerusalem over how the war should be conducted are more divisive than what actually happens in the closed-door talks, even on the political level, and certainly in military consultations and planning.
The most current example is that US officials say privately that Washington has never rejected that Israeli military activity in Rafah is key to defeating Hamas, a goal which the Biden administration has, in fact, repeatedly justified as an aim of this war.
The administration’s fear has been over civilian casualties. The talks with the Israelis have stressed how to conduct a Rafah campaign in a more pinpointed manner, as opposed to whether the Rafah operation could be dropped altogether.
Amid these talks, President Biden has tried to fend off criticism from those who are threatening to vote against him in the US presidential election in November. He argues that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the problem, but that the Israeli cause is correct.
It was important to the White House that public meetings which took place in Washington were first and foremost with Benny Gantz, who though a war cabinet member is still viewed as more of an opposition figure, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who is also seen as maintaining strained relations with Netanyahu.
The references from US administration officials regarding the Israeli prime minister himself, meanwhile, have centered on the strained personal relationship, such as at least one especially tough phone conversation in which Biden chided Netanyahu.
However, the success of this effort to single out Netanyahu, as opposed to Israel as the overall problem, is very much in question. The protests continue to accompany Biden at many presidential election campaign appearances.
Campus antisemitism
THIS IS where the problem of the university campus unrest comes in. The president is more aggressive in the effort to thwart a regional Mideast conflict, or indeed a global conflict, than he is in countering the protesters not only at his election campaign stops, but even more crucially on the campuses. It’s logical, he argues.
Iran and its proxies are the real enemy; university students are not the enemy.
Biden issues a statement decrying and condemning antisemitism, but counters it by stressing the need for freedom of expression and acknowledging the death and destruction in Gaza. He is losing both his own battle and his war.
Amid Biden’s pronouncements, and those by Vice President Kamala Harris and Senator Charles Schumer, that only the current Israeli government’s policies pose a problem and not the Jewish state, there are those who view him as pro-apartheid and pro-genocide.
A presidential move to advance a policy against antisemitism does little to solve the larger problem. The president is teetering on his tightrope. He is so worried about declining support ahead of the November election, he is willing, at least until this point, to temper his response to protests, encampments, and the campaign of fear and violence against Jewish students, and antisemitism across American society, not just at Ivy League and other schools.
His policy of attempting to have it both ways, working for world peace while also pacifying progressives, is seen as lacking backbone, afraid to speak out, to offend his electorate, and yes, too afraid to take on anti-Israel and antisemitic protesters alike.
Yet, his entire thesis avoids one crucial issue. It’s true that US university students should not be placed in the same category as Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis. However, who is behind these protests of “From the river to the sea,” “Free Palestine,” and other such slogans? White House officials do not deny that some of the president’s own staffers and various supporters in Congress support at least the spirit of some of these protests.
However, the administration, and also State Department officials say that states such as Iran, in a more clandestine way, and Qatar, more openly, have infiltrated financially and as such through “educational channels,” to “fan the flames beyond any legitimate and intellectual support for the Palestinian people.”
This is how the pieces of this puzzle come together. It’s been widely stated that Qatar has been trying to have it both ways, hosting Hamas but also acting as a supposed good-intentioned mediator in negotiations to release the hostages.
However, just from a pragmatic point of view, the Biden administration approach makes a divide between what they present as two separate problems, but in fact are two aspects of the same challenge.
The administration is truly on Israel’s side in fighting Iran and its proxies in the Mideast but has a larger problem in dealing with how it affects what is going on within the borders of the United States.
There are the progressives, Muslim personalities and groups, and even Jews who support the cause. Yet, when does this cause penetrate beyond supporting the rights of the Palestinian people to also promoting the views of Hamas, of the destruction of Israel and genocide against the Jewish people?
This brings us back to the events of 2014. During Operation Protective Edge, then-US secretary of state John Kerry was sharply criticized by Israeli officials for negotiating a ceasefire with Qatar.
The Obama administration argued that speaking to Qatar, because of its close ties with Hamas, was essential.
Just about a decade later, the October 7 massacres were an extreme event which stunned Israeli officials and prompted them to believe that drastic measures were necessary, both militarily, and in terms of, in fact, also taking part in talks with Qatar to try to negotiate hostage deals.
Each case can be argued on its own merits. The question regarding the current campus crisis is whether the Biden administration, while fighting to calm tensions in the Middle East, should also be addressing the larger picture of what is happening at home, stepping up the fight against antisemitism, and protecting students, as well as Jews everywhere.
The writer is op-ed editor of The Jerusalem Post.