Total solidarity with Israel, support for its security, warning to other armed actors in the region: the Biden administration reacted quickly and strongly to the multifrontal terrorist attack carried out by Hamas on October 7. The seriousness of the events mobilized the National Security Council from dawn. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has increased contacts with Palestinian officials and Middle Eastern leaders, seeking in vain to obtain clear condemnations. On Sunday, the head of diplomacy explained on CNN that the administration was verifying information on possible American deaths as well as nationals kidnapped by Hamas.
It is the same for the White House as for Israeli political parties: the criticisms of recent months against the Netanyahu government and its illiberal projects for judicial reform have been put aside, given the extent of the trauma suffered. Likewise, the question of the failure of intelligence and the military system along the Gaza Strip is not on the agenda. It is time for a united front.
After speaking with the Israeli Prime Minister, Joe Biden delivered a speech to renew the classic terms of American commitment alongside the Jewish state, when its security is at stake. The president supported a passage. “Let me say this as clearly as possible: Now is not the time for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to gain advantage. » The warning is intended primarily for the Shiite Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, which could be tempted to open a front in the north, in the event of a ground incursion by the Israeli army into Gaza.
Washington’s top priority is to avoid a regional extension of the conflict. Iran is being closely watched. Cautious precision from a senior American official on Saturday : “it is too early to say if the Iranian state is involved” in the preparation and execution of the attack. The rehabilitation of the Iranian nuclear agreement (JCPoA) having failed, due to Tehran, Washington must, here too, be content with modest objectives: preventing an escalation with this hostile regime, practicing hostage taking like Hamas, beyond the bilateral exchange of prisoners formalized on September 18.
A foreign policy imbued with iron realism
In Congress as in the White House, consultations are accelerating to provide emergency security aid to Israel. Behind this displayed solidarity, the administration is nevertheless confronted with the limits of its commitment: a House of Representatives in the doldrums, without a speaker, facing the prospect of a shutdown of government activities in mid-November, due to lack of budgetary agreement; the absence of an American ambassador to Israel, the post being held by a charge d’affaires; very complex, even tense, relations with two of the main regional players, Egypt – traditional mediator with the Palestinian armed factions – and Turkey.
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