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Et tu, Biden?

Joe Biden’s famous quote that the United States will now lead with “the power of our example rather than the example of our power” sounds great as political rhetoric.

By Sabria Chowdhury Balland | July 2021


“Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect its interests”.
– President Joe Biden in 2015 when he was the Vice President of the United States.

Joe Biden served for decades in the U.S. Senate and afterwards as the Vice President for former U.S. President Barack Obama. So the Palestinians and many Democratic voters and optimists were relieved to see the end of the Trump era. They thought that Joe Biden would adopt a policy aligned to what he claimed to support.

Joe Biden’s American Leadership Plan clearly stipulate three factors:
1. Fighting corruption
2. Fighting authoritarianism, which included election security.
3. Advancing human rights.

All these points are ones which President Biden has assured in the domestic and global context. A bold and innovative agenda, the American Leadership Plan has unfolded rapidly into quite the opposite on a larger scale.

Granted, it would be unfair to say that the Biden administration has not stood up for any oppressed people at all. It has been an outspoken critic of China’s human rights violations against the Uighurs in Xinjiang. The reason? It is a viable critique to undermine China. Would the Uighurs matter to the Biden administration otherwise? The answer seems obvious.

The Biden administration has also been critical of the treatment of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Once again, this falls under the Chinese human rights violations category.

With regard to the horrendous human rights abuses being committed by the BJP government in India on Muslims, there has been silence. With regard to the almost daily enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings by the government of Bangladesh in one of the worst demonstrations of authoritarianism and lack of freedom of expression in modern times. There has been utter silence from the White House. The list goes on.

Joe Biden’s famous quote that the United States will now lead with “the power of our example rather than the example of our power” sounds great as political rhetoric to receive applause and standing ovations from the crowds but it was flagrantly absent during what the world witnessed in May 2021 in the war between Palestine and Israel.

It was, as it always is, not a “confrontation” nor a “conflict”. Knowing that Israeli settlers and the police raided the Al Aqsa Mosque on the holiest night of the holiest month for Muslims, the Biden administration, particularly Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, went on auto-pilot, as did the mainstream media, that Israel was merely “defending itself”.

To add insult to injury, President Biden decided to invite all American Muslims to virtual Eid celebrations. The vast majority of American Muslim organizations and Muslims from the Democratic Party wrote a scathing letter to the organizers of the event, stating, rightfully, that the White House could not be more wrong in applauding Israel for bombing Palestininas on the one hand and sending out Eid invitations on the other.

President Biden’s administration (the State Department, in particular) also did not hesitate one moment to send Israel $735 million in arms sales to Israel within this time frame, in addition to the 3.8 billion the US government already sends every year as “aid”.

Even when Israel broke the ceasefire which began on May21, 2021, Biden said, “Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza aren’t a significant overreaction.”

Since taking office in January 2021, President Biden has not even reversed the illegal steps his predecessor Donald Trump took, such as the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Considering that Joe Biden did place a great deal of importance on human rights, many may have expected that in order to demonstrate goodwill and a sharp turn from Trump’s abhorrent policies towards the Palestininas, Biden might handle the situation differently, However, Joe Biden and his administration failed to condemn the clearest violations of international law and human rights by Israel. Biden’s bungled response on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has surprised many and his image as a potential champion of human rights and international law has been badly damaged. Is leading with “the power of our example” continuing to support, in every sense of the word, a regime which Human Rights Watch and Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem say, is committing apartheid and persecution against humanity?

The saving grace in the US government is clearly the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, led by Senator Bernie Sanders and comprising Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, just to name a few. The Progressives are not alone. There are others such as Congresswoman Betty McCollum, who introduced a Bill which defends the human rights of Palestininan children, homes and lands and demands stopping Israel from using US tax dollars to indiscriminately destroy these very elements.

For the first time in US history, lawmakers are taking a firm stand to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes and human rights abuses. There is no reason to think that this trend will be left at the back burner and we can expect to see the Palestinian issue crop up on a regular basis at US election times,

The American public has seen first hand on social media the extreme human rights abuses Israel inflicts on the Palesininians, so have the lawmakers who have stood up for what is right.

However, President Biden, the self-proclaimed Zionist who proudly said that the almost $4 billion the US gives in “aid” to Israel is “the best investment”, has proven that his foreign policy “prioritizing human rights” is actually a means to cherry pick human rights abuses only by those the Biden admonstration considers foes.

If that is the example President Biden is setting, it is simply not good enough.

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