With both the Israel-Palestine war and the Ukraine-Russia war, the United States has received a fair amount of pushback based on their views and support. One frustration is regarding the stance that the United States is taking on the Israel-Gaza conflict when compared to Russia-Ukraine.
A Global Analyst, Richard Hass, once said that “Consistency in foreign policy is a luxury policymakers cannot always afford” and this speaks heavily on what is going on with the United States and these two major conflicts.
Joe Biden has decided to defend Israel’s methods in Gaza while supporting Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine war. This has sparked a lot of controversy and talk between outsiders seeing this as an inconsistent position to hold.
National hypocrisy can cause a lot of problems, from loss of credibility to diminished self-respect. Biden’s decision here is already having real-world implications that could affect America’s relations with its allies.
The United States is often called the “indispensable nation” but with Biden’s recent actions, it’s hard to believe this. Biden recently, in December, denied a cease-fire agreement for Gaza and Israel, an agreement that other countries have been in support of.
Vladimir Putin recently said that he feels that “everything at this point is trending in his favor.” Biden linked Ukraine and Israel together in his speech in October, describing that they were in similar positions. Many said that this tactic wasn’t necessarily smart on his end. “It may have been good congressional politics, but perhaps not good global politics,” said former US Department official Fiona Hills.
America’s selective nature is more than likely going to cause issues with the Global South, which is witnessing the U.S. uphold colonial behaviors on one side while challenging them on the other.
An Israeli specialist, Daniel Levy says, “A US monopolistic exercise [regarding the fate of Gaza] is out of sync with the world we live in today and with contemporary geopolitics. In that respect, something important and interesting has happened, and perhaps even a source of some hope, which is, we’ve seen that for so much of the so-called Global South and in many cities in the West, Palestine now occupies this kind of symbolic space. It’s a kind of avatar of a rebellion against Western hypocrisy, against this unacceptable global order, and against the post-colonial order.”
It’s said that Biden’s decision to support Israel can result in the changing of alliances or the inflaming of more tensions. These relations and the overall tone looked much different when Trump was in office, as he made decisions based on solidarity, without fear of losing Russian sources.
