Jonathan Ernst/Pool via AP
President Joe Biden speaks from the Oval Office of the White House, October 19, 2023, in Washington, about the wars in Israel and Ukraine.
Now we know what it takes to get Joe Biden to make an effective speech: two insoluble world crises.
Biden obviously had multiple and sometimes conflicting challenges before him when he addressed the nation last night. He needed to express deep solidarity with Israel, while at the same time urging it not to make the same errors that America made in the aftermath of 9/11—like its bloody blundering into Iraq. He also made mention of the need for a genuine two-state solution that would create a viable Palestinian state, and one can only hope that the credibility he’s gained with the Israeli public will give him the credibility to push for that as no American president has since Bill Clinton.
Only that push could justify the level of funding he’s asking Congress to allot to Israel. And that funding should be conditioned on Israel compelling a settler withdrawal from the West Bank and opening serious talks with the Palestinian Authority on establishing a viable Palestinian state. Even before Hamas’s attack, Israelis living within the nation’s pre-occupation borders had soured on the state’s coddling the settlers and the ultra-Orthodox at the expense of the rest of the nation. Now, with the reports that the army had been diverted from the border with Gaza to secure the settlers’ outposts, much of the public may reasonably conclude that the settlements not only stoke Palestinian rage but also directly imperil Israel’s security, as Gershom Gorenberg argues here today.
Biden also linked U.S. support for Israel to U.S. support for Ukraine, citing both as matters of moral and political necessity. I don’t doubt Biden’s sincerity in joining these two conflicts together, but I think this was also a matter of pragmatic political calculation. It’s not as if he could come before the American people as he did last night to make the case just for Ukraine. By linking it to a crisis that has suddenly riveted Americans’ attention, however, he commanded a much broader audience, and one that was likely more receptive to his joint appeal than it would have been to a separate pleading for aid to Ukraine. In last night’s speech, he cloaked aid to both under the mantle of America riding to the rescue of victimized peoples, and for those Americans who understand how profoundly victimized the Palestinians have been for the better part of a century, he also highlighted his role in getting food, water, and medical supplies into Gaza.
Plunked down into this mishmash of conflicting policy imperatives, Biden, I thought, actually delivered the most effective speech of his presidency. And viewed through the prism of domestic politics, he needed to deliver an effective speech. This wasn’t old duffer Joe; this was, well, the president, wrapping all his policy proposals in the shiny raiment of traditional American values, most pointedly tolerance for those who differ from us. Biden has frequently lamented the costs that tribalism and racism have inflicted on American life and lives, but never particularly effectively until last night, when it seemed to flow organically from his survey of the world’s tribalism now running amok.
In that sense, it was also his most effective anti-Trump speech, making the contrast between his approach to the presidency and Trump’s tribal rabble-rousing very clear without having to mention or even refer to Trump at all. It also put congressional Republicans into a pickle, since he announced he’ll be sending a bill for aid to Israel and Ukraine to the Hill at a time when the Republicans are so busy devouring themselves that the House cannot convene. As Sheldon Adelson is no longer with us, we can only imagine how he would react at seeing the ultra-right Republicans whose campaign coffers he once filled descending into a paroxysm of myopia so profound that they can’t get it together to fund the Israeli military, which was the main reason why Adelson had funded them in the first place.
Anyway, it was a good night for Joe Biden, and as we need him to have many such nights if he’s to block Donald Trump’s return to power, it was a good night for civilization as such.
