Democratic politicians and commentators in the USA have heaped reward on President Joe Biden since he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on Sunday.
Consultant Maxine Waters, for example, known as Biden a “sort and respectable man”. Former Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in the meantime, extolled his “imaginative and prescient, values and management”.
However whereas political leaders showered Biden with compliments, bombs continued to rain down on Gaza, killing dozens and sparking one other wave of mass displacement in Khan Younis.
For a lot of Palestinian rights advocates, the carnage and abuses in Gaza will outline Biden’s place within the historical past books, because the US stays steadfast in its assist of Israel’s struggle within the Palestinian territory.
“He’ll be remembered for the lots of of 1000’s killed, injured and displaced in Gaza,” mentioned Abed Ayoub, the chief director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).
“There isn’t a means round it. ‘Genocide Joe’ is what he’s going to be remembered as.”
Thanks, President Biden! I’m one in every of your best supporters and I used to be prepared to stick with you thru the Democratic Get together nomination. Nonetheless, you’ve determined to step down and you’ve got endorsed your Vice President Kamala Harris. You’re a sort and respectable man who’s…
— Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) July 21, 2024
Since Israel’s struggle on Gaza began on October 7, Biden has provided the federal government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unconditional army and diplomatic assist.
Solely as soon as did Biden withhold a cargo of bombs to Israel over humanitarian considerations — and even then, he launched a part of that cargo a pair months later, amid stress from Netanyahu.
Israel’s struggle, in the meantime, has killed almost 39,000 Palestinians, displaced lots of of 1000’s, fuelled a man-made starvation disaster and destroyed massive components of the territory. United Nations specialists and different observers have warned of a “threat of genocide” in Gaza.
Ayoub informed Al Jazeera that, regardless of Biden’s domestic achievements, the president will rank among the many worst in US historical past attributable to his unconditional assist for Israel.
The US Marketing campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) echoed that remark. “Nothing will erase the truth that Biden’s legacy is — and at all times will likely be — genocide,” the group mentioned in an announcement.
Netanyahu ‘bear hug’
The US president has been a stalwart supporter of Israel all through his decades-long political profession.
He continuously calls himself a Zionist and argues that Jews the world over wouldn’t be secure with out Israel.
He put that worldview into coverage throughout his presidency, as he pushed on with Former President Donald Trump’s pro-Israel doctrine. Biden saved the US embassy in Jerusalem and refused to reverse the Trump-era determination to recognise Israel’s claims to the occupied Golan Heights in Syria.
He additionally aggressively pursued formal ties between Israel and Arab states, a purpose Trump superior with the 2020 Abraham Accords.
That push for normalisation, nonetheless, got here with out progress in direction of the popularity of an unbiased Palestinian state or the dismantling of systemic anti-Palestinian discrimination.
The outbreak of the struggle in Gaza additional underscored Biden’s pro-Israel insurance policies.
Weeks after the battle began, Biden travelled to Israel and publicly embraced Netanyahu in what many critics have described as a “bear hug”.
That signal of friendliness was broadly understood to be an endorsement of Netanyahu’s response in Gaza, after the Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7.
Even early within the battle, human rights teams accused Israel of horrific violations rising to the extent of genocide — a push to destroy the Palestinian individuals.
Throughout the first week alone, the Israeli army mentioned it had unleashed 2,000 strikes throughout Gaza — a strip of land roughly the scale of Las Vegas.
Biden has since authorised steady arms transfers and greater than $14bn in further assist to maintain Israel’s Gaza offensive. Furthermore, his administration has vetoed three United Nations Safety Council proposals that might have known as for a ceasefire.
Hatem Abudayyeh, the chair of the US Palestinian Neighborhood Community (USPCN), mentioned Biden will likely be remembered above all for enabling Israel’s “crimes in opposition to humanity”.
“He may’ve turned the faucet of cash and weapons off in October, however he allowed this genocide to occur. He’s complicit, and that’s what will likely be written on his tombstone,” Abudayyeh informed Al Jazeera.
Biden and Palestinians
Following his entry into politics in 1970, Biden rapidly rose from native to nationwide prominence, mounting a profitable dark-horse marketing campaign to signify Delaware within the US Senate in 1972.
After almost 4 a long time in Congress, he turned vice chairman underneath Barack Obama, and in 2021, he gained the presidency himself.
The president doesn’t hail from a political dynasty, and he’s not an distinctive orator. His success in politics is usually credited to his interpersonal abilities and skill to venture empathy.
That sense of compassion, nonetheless, by no means prolonged to Palestinians, activists say.
“For 9 and a half months, President Biden has funded and armed the brutal Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, making the US authorities straight complicit within the killing of a minimum of 39,000 individuals, together with over 15,000 youngsters,” Jewish Voice for Peace Motion mentioned in an announcement on Sunday.
“People have watched in horror and outrage as Biden despatched the Israeli authorities the weapons it used to wipe out complete generations of Palestinian households, to destroy hospitals, bakeries, faculties, mosques, churches, universities, refugee camps, houses and Gaza’s complete well being care system and electrical energy and water grids.”
Past coverage, Biden’s rhetoric at instances appeared dismissive of Israeli atrocities and Palestinian struggling.
“I’ve no notion that the Palestinians are telling the reality about how many individuals are killed. I’m certain innocents have been killed, and it’s the value of waging a struggle,” the US president said in October.
However that stance triggered Biden troubles each domestically and overseas.
Even earlier than Biden delivered a disastrous debate efficiency on June 27, the 81-year-old had began to path his Republican rival Trump in public opinion polls.
Components of the Democratic base — together with younger individuals, progressives, Arabs and Muslims — voiced frustration and anger together with his assist for Israel.
Teams just like the USCPR argued that Biden’s age and debate efficiency had been just one issue within the stress that pressured him from the presidential race.
“It was not Biden’s failed debate that confirmed he’s unfit to steer,” USCPR mentioned. “It was the tens of 1000’s of bombs he despatched to kill Palestinian households. It was his callous, dystopian disregard for Palestinian lives.”
Different commentators likewise argued that Biden failed to indicate sufficient concern for the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza.
Aaron David Miller, a veteran former US official, described the state of affairs bluntly in an interview with the New Yorker in April.
“Do I believe that Joe Biden has the identical depth of feeling and empathy for the Palestinians of Gaza as he does for the Israelis? No, he doesn’t, nor does he convey it. I don’t assume there’s any doubt about that,” he mentioned.
