Despite President Joe Biden's determination to demonstrate support to Israel, no one, in the Oval Office or elsewhere in the West Wing, has an appetite to make Israel’s fight against Hamas the top foreign policy priority. | Drew Angerer/Getty ImagesPresident Joe Biden heads to Israel tomorrow not just to show support for a country during one of its darkest hours but to prevent the administration from getting bogged down in a larger Middle East conflict — one that could derail its agenda.
The administration has repeatedly signaled it won’t overstep in reaction to the conflict that has already killed 1,400 people in Israel, around 3,000 Palestinians, and resulted in 30 dead Americans plus a handful believed to be held hostage., Biden ruled out sending U.S. troops into the war and warned Israel against occupying Gaza, the Hamas-run enclave. Those messages are paired with repeated warnings to Iran and its proxy forces, namely Hezbollah, to keep out of the conflict.
The difficult balancing act now facing the administration was evident in the decision to make the trip itself. Iran and its aligned groups are showing there is movement toward mobilization, rhetoric about future conflicts and that a deployment could happen, said Phillip Smyth, an expert on Iranian proxy groups. These are some of the specific steps that these groups take ahead of an operation, “and all of those steps are now occurring.”