With fewer than 70 days left in workplace, United States President Joe Biden has formally entered the “lame duck” part of his presidency – the time period between administrations when a president’s affect and talent to form coverage dwindle as his successor prepares to take workplace.
However with the looming finish of Biden’s five-decade political profession comes a closing likelihood to outline his legacy – notably in relation to international coverage, which Biden has lengthy seen as one in every of his signature points.
For these against the present administration’s unwavering assist for Israel throughout its greater than yearlong struggle on Gaza, this lame duck interval is a closing alternative “to attempt to push Biden to maneuver previous a legacy of genocide”, stated Annelle Sheline, a former US Division of State official who resigned in March in protest towards the Biden administration’s Israel coverage.
However it’s unlikely that the administration will backtrack on its multibillion-dollar assist for Israel’s struggle after a 12 months of deepening humanitarian disaster and large-scale proof of mass struggle crimes during which the US is deeply implicated.
“Now that there’s much less of a political value to pay, Biden may select to do good issues,” Matt Duss, government vp on the Heart for Worldwide Coverage, advised Al Jazeera. “However it’s by no means been fully political; it’s ideological. That is simply how he believes the US-Israel relationship ought to work, and that’s with mainly zero strain on Israel about something.”
“I’ve no hope by any means that they’ll do something significant, constructive, useful or brave in these final months,” Duss added.
Robert Hunter, a former US ambassador to NATO, stated Biden ought to cease all arms shipments to Israel “tomorrow” however would by no means achieve this.
“Biden has all through his profession been a powerful supporter of Israel,” Hunter advised Al Jazeera. “However it implies that at any time when he’s had a severe likelihood to affect issues, first as vp and now as president, he has by no means – aside from one pause [on shipments of heavy bombs] – been prepared to go towards what Israel, and particularly [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, desires him to do.”
“It’s one thing that he believes in,” Hunter added.
Thirty-day help deadline passes
As Democrats assess the influence of their foreign policy on Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, there are sensible issues that the administration can – and critics argue ought to – do earlier than Trump takes workplace on January 20.
Whereas a few of these measures could also be later reversed by the Trump administration, they’d nonetheless have the flexibility to halt or no less than decelerate Israel’s escalating assaults on northern Gaza in addition to ship a message to the general public and the incoming administration that the US does have leverage on Israel, though it has to date declined to make use of it.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration had the chance to make sure that Israel confronted penalties for its actions after a 30-day deadline that the administration had set on the supply of help to Gaza expired. Nonetheless, as Biden met Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the White Home, reiterating Washington’s “ironclad” assist for its ally, the US said there would be no change to military assistance to Israel, even because the Center Jap nation failed to hold out the steps requested by Washington.
“There have been lots of people who stated issues like, ‘Properly, politically, the Democrats need to proceed to assist Israel, or this could possibly be an election concern for them,’” Sheline advised Al Jazeera. “And now that the election is within the rear-view mirror, clearly, that is what they need. They are saying issues like, ‘We’re saddened by what’s occurring,’ however clearly, they’re not going to make use of any leverage.”
“Even now, once they gained’t undergo politically for it, they absolutely assist every thing that’s occurring,” she added. “In any other case, they’d truly do one thing about it.”
With greater than 40,000 Palestinians killed and Israel’s wars within the area solely widening, the Biden administration selecting to withhold arms, concern extra sanctions or clear the best way for full inclusion of the state of Palestine on the United Nations would do little to reverse the immense human value of its assist for Israel to date. However these measures may pave the best way for a change in method and power the hand of the Trump administration.
“It’s definitely late,” Josh Paul, one other former State Division official who resigned final 12 months in protest towards the administration’s coverage in the direction of Gaza, stated at a Discussion board on the Arms Commerce and Democracy for the Arab World Now occasion final week.
“That stated, it’s by no means too late.”
One final alternative
It’s not unusual for an exiting administration to hurry by way of a flurry of insurance policies and measures earlier than the brand new administration is available in.
Within the final three months of Trump’s first time period as president earlier than Biden took workplace in January 2021, the administration introduced greater than $23bn in arms gross sales to the United Arab Emirates, $500m in precision ammunition to Saudi Arabia and – with lower than one month left – $300m in small diameter bombs to Saudi Arabia. In January 2021, the Trump administration additionally declared Yemen’s Houthi motion a “international terrorist organisation”, a designation that kicked in simply at some point earlier than Trump left workplace.
The Biden administration may get equally busy if it desires to.
In August, the administration introduced $20bn in arms gross sales to Israel, and the US Senate is ready to weigh in on that sale this month after Senator Bernie Sanders filed laws forcing a vote on the matter.
Biden additionally has huge leeway to droop weapons transfers to Israel on his personal, Paul added. And as Trump has pitched himself because the president who will convey “peace” to the area – even because the president-elect appoints hardline pro-Israelis to distinguished positions – halting weapons deliveries to Israel now would shift the burden of reversing course onto the following administration.
“That may be one thing that the Trump administration must make a acutely aware resolution to show again on,” Paul stated, noting that “altering a coverage is fairly simple to do from one administration to a different, however altering a authorized willpower is considerably tougher.”
Past making use of US legal guidelines or utilizing US leverage – each steps that the Biden administration has persistently refused to take – the Biden administration may develop its sanctions on Israeli settlers, probably concentrating on Israel’s most far-right ministers, like Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, because the United Kingdom is considering. It may doubtlessly additionally recognise Palestinian statehood and clear the best way for the UN Safety Council to approve Palestine as a full member of the UN.
“These are to some extent blue sky,” Paul stated. “However they’re additionally all issues throughout the president’s remit and issues that the president may do if he truly needed to.”
Duss is uncertain the Biden administration will do something in a different way in its final weeks in workplace.
“In terms of imposing actual prices, actually standing up for human rights, notably Palestinian rights, I don’t anticipate something from them,” he stated.
“However one factor I actually would need them to do is simply inform the reality,” he added, calling on the administration, as an illustration, to launch inner studies on the six Palestinian NGOs Israel designated as “terrorist teams” in 2021 or to publicise US assessments of the allegations Israel made towards UNRWA, the UN company for Palestinian refugees, that a few of its workers had been concerned within the October 7, 2023, assaults towards Israel.
“However that might require them to have the tiniest quantity of braveness,” Duss stated.
Each minute issues
After Republicans gained the White Home and management of the US Senate and can probably win the Home of Representatives as properly, extra critics of US coverage in the direction of Israel might belatedly discover the braveness to talk out.
“I anticipate that we are going to see Democrats instantly recognising that genocide is mistaken who had been unwilling to criticise Biden,” Sheline advised Al Jazeera. “I anticipate that we are going to see individuals who attempt to salvage their reputations and say, ‘We had been doing what we may on the within.’ However I feel the proof is obvious that the US had huge leverage that it didn’t use.”
It’s not simply Biden’s legacy that’s at stake.
“Notably given the election outcomes, there will likely be a number of senior administration officers each within the White Home and within the government businesses who want to begin actually considering laborious about their legacy,” Paul stated. “Whereas it’s too late for tens of hundreds in Gaza, I feel there are nonetheless some alternatives there to salvage one thing and likewise to ship a sign to their very own occasion that it isn’t too late for that occasion to alter both.”
“It’s by no means by no means too late to do the best factor,” he added.
That doubtlessly means saving hundreds of lives – one thing advocates stress Biden nonetheless has the ability to do.
“He may be a lame duck in US politics, however he’s undoubtedly not a lame duck because it pertains to the lives of the Palestinian folks, and on daily basis, each minute issues,” Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison, a Palestinian American political analyst, advised Al Jazeera final week.
“It’s completely [Biden’s] accountability to instantly cease the genocide in Gaza. He can do it with a cellphone name,” she added. “That is an Israel-US confederate struggle within the area, and it’s incumbent on him to really cease the genocide earlier than he leaves workplace.”
