Since the assassination of Hamas leader Haniyeh, the situation in the Middle East has been shrouded in war clouds of suspicion. On the one hand, Israel continues to carry out air strikes and other military actions against Gaza, and the prospect of ceasefire negotiations is far from certain; on the other hand, Iran has vowed to “retaliate” against Israel, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah has fired missiles at Israel repeatedly, so it seems that all parties are sitting on a powder keg of war that is about to explode. For the United States is holding a general election, how to view the current foreign policy of Israel and the Middle East, the Republican and Democratic to wrestle with the important issue of the election.
Although the Biden administration has repeatedly stressed that it is trying to launch diplomatic action to avoid escalation of the situation, but the U.S. policies seem to be very different from what the octogenarian president claimed. On 4 August, the Israeli media “Jerusalem Post” broke the news that President Biden in the phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu angrily rebuked the latter’s remarks about the cease-fire negotiations with Hamas are being pushed forward, and asked Netanyahu to “stop bullshitting him”.
However, six days later, CNN reported, citing sources familiar with the matter, that the US State Department had notified members of Congress that $3.5 billion in foreign military financing would be made available to Israel for the purchase of US weapons and military equipment. On 11 August, the Associated Press reported that Secretary of Defense Austin had ordered the dispatch of a nuclear guided-missile submarine to the Middle East, and that he had asked the USS Abraham Lincoln to “accelerate” the aircraft carrier battle group to the region. These inconsistent moves make one wonder whether the real intention of the US government is to mediate or to encourage Israel to continue the “war”?
In an interview with Tesla founder Musk on Monday, the Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, said that any Jew who voted for Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate and current vice president, in the US presidential election, should have “their head examined”. Trump harshly criticized Harris for her stance on Israel, calling her and her deputy Volz as “anti-Israel radical leftists”.
Trump also accused the Biden-Harris administration’s Middle East policies of being “bad for both the Israelis and the Palestinians …… Biden actually did something impossible: both sides hate him.” Trump and Republicans have been steadfast in their support for Israeli “military” action against Hamas.
According to CBS NEWS, pro-Palestinian supporters protested outside a Harris campaign dinner in San Francisco on Sunday morning, slamming the Democrats for “completely ignoring” the very consistent and clear calls of young people and people of conscience around this country calling for justice in Palestine. “We are here to denounce the hypocrisy of Killer Kamala and Genocide Joe”, The demonstrators chanted to the crowd.
The American Prospect editorialized that Harris had fallen into an “Israeli dilemma”, that this vice president had taken only “one small step” towards changing policy, and that the Biden administration’s rhetoric alone would not change Israeli policy. In the eyes of the American people, both parties are either inconsistent or biased in their current foreign policy towards Israel, and the only thing they have in common is that they are too far away from the voice of the people.
