Regardless of our individual political views, with Israel engaged in an existentialist war against an enemy determined to wipe it and its millions of Jewish citizens off the face of the earth, or at least off the face of the Middle East, we should all be grateful that the president of the United States is a man whose rock-solid stance toward Israel and toward the Jewish people is the product of a decades-long authentic, principled, and demonstrated friendship.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Oct. 19, President Joe Biden fully grasped and expressed the essence of the genocidal savagery perpetrated on Oct. 7. Hamas, he said, "unleashed pure unadulterated evil in the world, but sadly, the Jewish people know, perhaps better than anyone, that there is no limit to the depravity of people when they want to inflict pain on others." But he also remained sensitive to the anguish of Palestinian civilians in Gaza: "I'm heartbroken by the tragic loss of Palestinian life . . .. We mourn every innocent life lost. We can't ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have an opportunity."
By all applicable metrics, this speech was, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, Joe Biden finest hour.
It was also not the first time Biden had squarely placed the blame for the present conflagration where it belongs. In an address on Oct. 10, he identified Hamas as "a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews." He went further, calling the Oct. 7 slaughter "an act of sheer evil" and proceeded to describe the carnage in graphic detail: "More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered—not just killed, slaughtered . . . Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach-turning reports of being—babies being killed. Entire families slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace—to celebrate peace. Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies. . . Infants in their mothers' arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors abducted and held hostage—hostages whom Hamas has now threatened to execute in violation of every code of human morality. It's abhorrent."
The president of the United States thus made sure that the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas could never be put in doubt or questioned as somehow exaggerated. He also identified the root of the blood bath: "This attack," he said, "has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by a millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people."
He then traveled to Israel, the first such visit by a U.S. president in wartime. His first words from Tel Aviv on Oct. 18 set the tone, conveying his understanding of the historic bordering on apocalyptic significance of the moment, provided comfort and reassurance: "You are not alone. As long as the United States stands—and we will stand forever—we will not let you ever be alone." It was an unmistakable message to the people of Israel and a stark warning to their enemies. The United States and Joe Biden as its president, he reiterated loudly and clearly, have Israel's back.
While in Israel, Biden met at length with family members of the hostages and empathized with them. He listened to tearful descriptions of the murdered, who they were, what they hoped to be. Equally important, he also reminded Israelis in their darkest hour of who they are and who they must remain.
"You are a Jewish state," he said. "You are a Jewish state, but you're also a democracy. And like the United States, you don't live by the rules of terrorists. You live by the rule of law. . . . What sets us apart from the terrorists is we believe in the fundamental dignity of every human life—Israeli, Palestinian, Arab, Jew, Muslim, Christian—everyone. You can't give up what makes you who you are. If you give that up, then the terrorists win. And we can never let them win."
His concern at the rising Palestinian casualties in Gaza is certainly understandable and wholly legitimate, as is his determination to do everything in his and his administration's power, to obtain the release of the more than 230 hostages whom Hamas is cruelly and cynically using as bargaining chips. But, as he has also stressed on numerous occasions, Israel has the absolute right to defend itself, and the elimination of Hamas as an existentialist is an equally absolute part of this equation. "There's no going back to the status quo as it stood on Oct. 6," he told reporters this past Thursday. "That means ensuring that Hamas can no longer terrorize Israel and use Palestinians civilians as human shields. It also means that when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next, and in our view it has to be a two-state solution."
The Israel-Hamas war is and will continue to be excruciating. All wars are. Tragically, there will continue to be civilian casualties. There always are in war. The Allied bombings of Hamburg in 1943—Operation Gomorrah—and of Dresden in 1945 caused tens of thousands of civilian German deaths, but these bombings were deemed essential to breaking the back of Nazi Germany and the scourge it represented. To be sure, Hamas is not Nazi Germany, but it is no less evil and it, too, must be eradicated.
Oct. 7 has brought out the best in some and the worst in others. We have seen callous manifestations of indifference and unexpected expressions of solidarity and friendship. Most appalling has been the global outbreak of antisemitic demonstrations and threatened violence not just in the public square but on far too many university and college campuses. Shouts of "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" are as ominous and as frightening as "Jews will not replace us."
Joe Biden, who has taken his children and grandchildren to the site of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, understood instinctively, intuitively that there was nothing redeemable in the neo-Nazis who marched with tiki torches in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017. He understands equally instinctively and intuitively that those glorifying Hamas genocidaires and spewing hate against Israel and Jews today are every bit as dangerous. Just about now, this moral self-awareness and certainty may well be his most important and most admirable attribute.
As we Americans embark on yet another presidential election cycle, there are many legitimate reasons to argue vociferously about political ideologies, agendas, and priorities. Other presidential candidates may hold similarly strong positions regarding Israel and antisemitism—Nikki Haley, for one, comes prominently to mind. But Biden's friendship and support for the State of Israel and his commitment to fighting antisemitism should not be in question or up for debate. He has demonstrated these qualities conclusively throughout his career but especially over the course of the past three weeks, and all of us—Democrats, Republicans and independents, liberals, progressives, and conservatives—should simply breathe a sigh of relief and say thank you.
Menachem Z. Rosensaft teaches about the law of genocide at the law schools of Cornell and Columbia Universities. He is the author of Poems Born in Bergen-Belsen (Kelsay Books, 2021)
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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