WASHINGTON—President Biden entered the White House with the goal of ending the “forever wars” that had consumed America for two decades and instead focusing on domestic priorities and girding the U.S. to compete with China.
The Hamas-Israel war—and Biden’s response—risks overwhelming that agenda.
Following Hamas’s onslaught on Israel two weeks ago, Biden has given steadfast U.S. support to Israel, illustrated this week by his unprecedented wartime visit to Tel Aviv and embrace of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Hamas’s stronghold, nevertheless has magnified a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave, and the conflict threatens to spread.
After an explosion at a Gaza hospital that each side blamed on the other, a planned Biden meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and other Arab leaders in Jordan fell apart, skewing the trip’s optics in favor of Israel. Biden tried to balance that impression by announcing a $100 million humanitarian-assistance package for the West Bank and Gaza and issuing pleas to Israel to minimize civilian casualties.
The conflict is the second hot war Biden has invested with U.S. power and prestige—if not American troops—after Russia’s assault on Ukraine. By Thursday, Biden was looking very much the wartime president, sitting in the Oval Office behind the Resolute desk and appealing to the American public and Congress to support Israel and Ukraine.
“American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe,” Biden said in the prime-time address. “To put all that at risk if we walk away from Ukraine, if we turn our backs on Israel, it’s just not worth it.”
The foreign conflicts threaten to consume administration attention, overshadow a re-election campaign he hoped to center on his economic and domestic records and divert resources away from countering China.
Biden already must contend with an American public skeptical of continued U.S. support for Ukraine and protracted involvement in conflicts overseas. The $100 billion support package for Ukraine, Israel and other allies he announced in his prime-time speech faces hurdles in a divided Congress, where weeks of dysfunction have left the Republican-led House without a speaker.
Biden’s low approval ratings at home have barely budged in the latest crisis, despite the display of unbending backing for Israel, which is broadly popular among Americans. Should the Israel-Gaza violence spread, a wider Middle East conflict could also hurt the global economy, pushing up energy prices that have been elevated for two years and that fed inflation—for which American consumers have blamed Biden.
“Getting involved in a long war, if Israel is to be taken seriously that they want to destroy Hamas, is going to be months and months, thousands of deaths, possibly another front in Lebanon, possibly unrest in the Persian Gulf, possibly high oil prices,” said Paul Salem, head of the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank. “It has consequences.”
Two polls released this week, one by Quinnipiac University and the other by CBS News, found 85% of respondents are concerned about a wider war in the Middle East; the CBS poll also found while respondents were overwhelmingly sympathetic to Israel, less than half favor sending weapons and supplies.
Biden in his speech addressed the weariness among Americans who think the U.S. shouldn’t expend its resources on other nations’ wars. He asserted the importance of supporting Ukraine and Israel, portraying them as democracies under threat from aggressors, while vowing to stop short of embroiling American troops.
“I know these conflicts can seem far away. And it’s natural to ask: Why does this matter to America?” Biden said. “You know, history has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going, and the cost and the threats to America and to the world keep rising.”
Since taking office, Biden has often described a central objective as proving that democracies are superior to autocracies in delivering results for their people. The struggle between the systems has been an animating force for the Biden administration, meant to serve as a retort to autocrats such as Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his contention that “the East is rising while the West is declining.”
Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan after 20 years of war was in part intended to refocus priorities at home. Legislative successes in his first two years in office have allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize infrastructure, promote semiconductor production and clean-energy technologies and revive manufacturing to better position the U.S. for competition with China.
A strategy document on national security issued last year, while portraying China, Russia and climate change as leading challenges, also made rebuilding the middle class a core goal. “The United States is strong abroad because we are strong at home,” the strategy said.
Biden’s campaign for a second term has mostly centered on these investments at home, while aides see his efforts on the world stage as part of a pitch casting him as a steady leader in turbulent times. The tussle between democracies and autocracies, they said, will remain a part of his 2024 platform.
The Middle East, which only weeks ago Biden officials said looked quiet, is now forcing itself to the center of the administration’s attention. The Hamas attacks on Oct. 7 that touched off the latest violence killed more than 1,400 Israelis, and more than 200 others have been taken hostage. The United Nations estimates more than 4,000 people in Gaza—including more than 1,000 children—have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and more than one million people have been displaced.
The crisis has sent the administration into a round-the-clock, all-fronts effort to bolster Israel, contain the conflict and rally support at home and abroad.
Biden has given several speeches in support of Israel and met with members of the Jewish- American community. Top administration officials have held discussions with their Israeli counterparts to assess plans for Israel’s military response and establish humanitarian corridors in Gaza. Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week concluded a diplomatic blitz around the Mideast to help negotiate the release of the hostages taken by Hamas and prevent the violence from spreading.
Inside the administration, divisions among officials over the apparent tilt to Israel are beginning to show. Blinken sent a letter to State Department and foreign service officers on Thursday, urging calm and saying that while Israel has a right to defend itself, “how it does so matters.”
Some officials are also more pessimistic about the chances of keeping other foes of Israel—such as Lebanon-based, Iran-backed Hezbollah—from joining the conflict. Fears that the violence will incite terrorism and attacks on Americans prompted the State Department to issue a rare “worldwide caution” bulletin urging U.S. citizens abroad to be on alert. Americans in several Middle Eastern countries have been advised to depart urgently, a climate reminiscent of the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
While in Tel Aviv, Biden won a tentative agreement to allow an initial 20 trucks of humanitarian supplies into Gaza through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing. With Israel’s siege having cut off water, food, electricity and medical supplies to the enclave, that U.S. assistance has been described by the World Health Organization as a “drop in the ocean.” The convoy, after being held up for needed repairs to the road damaged by Israeli airstrikes, crossed into Gaza on Saturday before Egypt closed the border again.
Some of the constituencies that helped elect Biden to the White House, such as young and progressive voters, as well as Arab- and Muslim-Americans, have criticized what they see as U.S. carte blanche for Israel’s bombardment.
While in Israel and in his Thursday speech, Biden tried to appeal to the critics, drawing a distinction between Hamas militants and ordinary civilians. “We can’t ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have an opportunity,” he said.
Write to Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com and Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com
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