Yes, Joe Biden is a decent man
He stands on the moral high ground, pursuing a lasting and just peace despite resistance from both Hamas and the Netanyahu government while acting to limit the risk of a far wider war.
Gaza. Sudan. Ukraine. Myanmar. We live in an age of armed conflicts. Until recently, American soldiers were fighting and dying in several of them.
Most of the horror of war goes unnoticed in America. Just a few years ago, more than 600,000 perished in war and its related humanitarian disaster in Tigray. I am betting that most people reading this have no idea where that is.
But every once in a while, we turn our attention to a spot on the map and absorb its horror. Today that place is Gaza. What we see so overwhelms us that we just want it to stop. I share that desire. And yet… I hold out hope that the conflict will open a door not to a cease fire but to a lasting and just peace.
With that in mind, I want to respond to a letter I received this week.
Dear Mr. Eisendrath,
A friend forwarded to me your April 5 message about The Unthinkable, and I wonder if you can comprehend how some of us (well, my wife and me, and I think potentially many others) blanch at your characterization of Joe Biden as decent in light of his going along with the current desiccation of Gaza.
With apologies for any offense this question may bring against you, I am
Sincerely,
I appreciate the letter and its gentle tone. I take it as an invitation not to an argument but to a conversation and want to respond in turn.
The evidence for Joe Biden’s decency is decades long, and largely undisputed. His empathy, kindness, honesty, and candor are longstanding traits and well known in Washington. His effort to restructure the American economy so that working men and women get a fairer share of the value they create is heroic. But all eyes are on Gaza now, and my correspondent wonders whether the President’s leadership as it relates to Gaza now makes it impossible to see him as decent man.
President Joe Biden at the White House in Washington, May 2, 2024. Photo Credit: Nathan Howard/Reuters
The writer asks if I can understand his feelings. I do. The pain of what we are seeing is simply too great. I suspect that pain is why we usually choose to look the other way when there is a war. As I wrote above, Americans barely even register the other conflicts presently harvesting lives across the globe. Heck, most Americans paid little attention to the wars we fought for decades in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many could not find those countries on a map. Others were content to thank soldiers for their service after the national anthem and before the first pitch at baseball games. Far better, I think, to pay attention to war, to react with the horror it deserves, and to be angry with any and everyone who might be in a position to make it stop.
But this emotional response must be a starting point, not an end in itself. We must find the courage to bear the pain long enough to plan for a future even as the present seems overwhelming. One of the tragedies of Gaza and Israel is that present fear has always overcome voices urging long-term peace. America is in a position to avoid that mistake.
Joe Biden did not start this war. Joe Biden is not prosecuting this war. He comes to this moment with a lifetime of experience that teaches him to see the conflict between Israel and Hamas as nested in the larger conflict between Israel and Palestinian aspirations, and that, in turn nested within the far larger and potentially globally consuming conflict between Sunni and Shia- between Arab and Persian ambitions.
When Israel was attacked on October 7th, Joe Biden did three things. He went to Israel to condemn the attack and to offer support. He went in person to tell the Netanyahu government that America learned from its mistakes after 9-11, to warn him not to overreact and, at all costs, to protect civilians. Finally, Biden moved warships into the region to warn other actors not to take advantage of this conflict to launch a broader war.
Since then, Biden has worked tirelessly for a lasting peace that will include regional partners and a Palestinian state. That effort has led him, at times, to delay arms shipments to Israel and to sanction West Bank settlers. It has guided him, consistent with international law, to affirm Israel’s right to defend itself and to hold Hamas accountable for its atrocities. It has led him to authorize the use of force to keep the Red Sea open to shipping, to deter Iran’s other proxies from widening the conflict, and to defend against, and thus defuse, an unprecedented airborne attack on Israel from Iran that might otherwise have led to a regional conflagration.
Nor has he for one second forgotten that Americans are still held hostage somewhere beneath Gaza. Keeping them safe and bringing them home has been a top diplomatic priority. When the pain of this conflict hit home and Americans reacted in anguish, sometimes unleashing ancient antisemitic or Islamophobic hatreds, the President has stood firmly for the American values of tolerance, inclusion, and compassion.
We no longer live in the old world of empires and colonies. It is a young person’s fantasy to assume any President can impose a peace or a post-war order on this most difficult part of the world. Two decades in Iraq should have made that clear. Yet neither are we irrelevant.
The exercise of diplomatic and military power is the most difficult art. George Washington and FDR figured it out. George W. Bush and James K. Polk did not. So far, Joe Biden has used American power to keep armed conflicts - in Europe and in the Middle East - from expanding into much larger, much deadlier wars. He has sought to build alliances with other nations both to preserve peace where that still is possible, and to bring about a just end to conflict where it rages. I do not envy him this task.
To my eyes, Mr. Biden’s leadership is not simply balanced. He stands on the moral high ground, pursuing a lasting and just peace despite resistance from both Hamas and the Netanyahu government while acting to limit the risk of a far wider war. And, to respond more directly to the letter’s author, I think that leadership reflects Mr. Biden’s experience, his courage, and, yes, his decency.