Photo: Mattie Neretin/Getty Images
From the beginning, something has been off about President Joe Biden’s approach to the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s genocidal invasion of Gaza.
Even by the low standards of America’s steadfast support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine and Biden’s own long-standing Zionism, he’s been careless: endorsing baseless Israeli propaganda, bear-hugging the notoriously unreliable Benjamin Netanyahu, and slandering his own supporters as antisemites.
The disastrous presidential debate, and Biden’s decision to bow out of the race, has given us a new way to understand what’s been happening. Maybe Biden’s approach has been thoughtless because the president is having trouble thinking.
In retrospect, Biden’s incapacity has been on display since the first days following the October 7 raid. “I never really thought that I would see and have confirmed pictures of terrorists beheading children,” the president said, repeating a gruesome but uncorroborated rumor.
The press raced to clarify: Had Biden seen evidence that the Israelis were keeping secret? White House staff explained that the president was merely referring to Israeli media reports. We could chalk it up to a gaffe at a highly charged moment, except that Biden kept repeating the charge, leading Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler to accuse the president of exaggerating under the headline “Biden yet again says Hamas beheaded babies. Has new evidence emerged?” The answer was “No.”
The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill called Biden’s constant invocation of the fantastical beheaded babies story “inexplicable,” but now we know better. As two Harvard researchers wrote in a 2020 peer-reviewed study titled “Aging in an Era of Fake News,” those in late adulthood tend to have “difficulty detecting lies,” and they place “less emphasis on accuracy when communicating.” Obviously this does not apply to all older adults — Sen. Bernie Sanders, for example, has remained notably sharp into his 80s — but after what we saw on the debate stage and in subsequent interviews, I find it hard to argue that it doesn’t fit Biden. At very least, it’s an explanation that fits the facts.
If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, then how to describe Biden’s plan to break Yemen’s hold on Red Sea shipping lanes? When asked if U.S. airstrikes were working, Biden told the press, “When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.” It’d be easier to call this another gaffe if that weren’t exactly what happened. Operation Prosperity Guardian airstrikes have killed dozens of Yemenis, and two Navy SEALs were lost at sea, but there has never been any hint of success for the Western alliance.
Over six months after the beginning of Prosperity Guardian, U.S. forces remain locked in what personnel have called “the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II.” America has been losing that battle every step of the way, something the troops aren’t used to. “I’ll be honest,” one recently returned Navy pilot told the AP about the novelty of getting shot at off Yemen, “it was a little traumatizing for the group.”
This drawn-out defeat is more or less what Biden said was going to happen; it’s not the statement that was the mistake, it was the mission itself. Starting a deadly international fight you can’t even plan to win is professional incompetence, but not being able to stop yourself from saying so out loud to the press suggests a different, more personal kind of incompetence.
Though Biden is unlikely to jump to the alternate explanations — corruption or racism — in his own defense, there’s evidence for both.
As a senator, Biden topped the Open Secrets list of recipients for pro-Israel money, receiving more than twice as much since 1990 as second-place Bob Menendez of New Jersey. (Menendez is corrupt: He was recently convicted at trial of acting as an overseas agent for Egypt.)
Whatever combination of earnest and bought, Biden’s support for Israel has never been tempered by concern for Palestinians. When the New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner suggested to former State Department official Aaron David Miller that American policymakers don’t value Israeli and Palestinian lives equally, he didn’t get much pushback. “Do I think that Joe Biden has the same depth of feeling and empathy for the Palestinians of Gaza as he does for the Israelis?” said Miller. “No, he doesn’t, nor does he convey it. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.” I have similarly little doubt that Biden’s bigotry has made it easier for him to support the genocide in Gaza, but it’s not sufficient to explain his conduct.
But incompetence explains Biden’s actions in a way that unconditional support for the Israeli project can’t. It would have been easy enough to try and muddy the waters and obscure Israel Defense Forces responsibility for the massacre at Gaza’s largest hospital, for example, but there was no strategic reason for Biden to claim, as he did in November, that it was a “fact” that Hamas was hiding its military headquarters under al-Shifa.
When pressed by reporters to present some, or any, evidence that this was the case, Biden said with a strange, crooked smile, “No, I can’t tell you. “I won’t tell you,” he firmly states, not allowing the reporter to continue with the follow-up question. Despite his strange expression, the president confidently asserts that Hamas did not have its military headquarters in tunnels under al-Shifa Hospital, without providing any evidence for his false certainty.
George W. Bush may not be known for his intelligence, but even he understood the concept of not being fooled twice. However, Biden seems unaware that Netanyahu’s administration is taking advantage of him, expanding the war to other countries, making false demands, assassinating aid workers, and sabotaging peace talks. Despite all this, Biden believes he is doing a fair job and claims to have been supportive of the Palestinians.
Under Biden’s leadership, Israel has been seizing land in the West Bank and the Knesset recently voted against a two-state solution, right before Biden plans to reward Netanyahu with a visit to Congress. The disastrous temporary pier project in Gaza has failed to help those in need, highlighting the tragic impact of Biden’s policies on the Palestinian people.
Biden will not be the Democratic nominee in the upcoming election, in part due to public backlash against his handling of the conflict. The collapse in public faith in Biden’s campaign is linked to the movement for Gaza, which refused to support him and contributed to his declining popularity. It’s time for a change in American policy towards Israel, and Harris, as the presumptive nominee, must distance herself from Biden’s mistakes and pressure Israel towards a permanent ceasefire.
This admission would essentially acknowledge that the president’s lack of ability has had severe consequences: leading to the tragic deaths of hundreds of thousands.
Biden could potentially be remembered as “Genocide Joe,” a shameful figure in the history of the United States presidency, closely associated with Israel’s atrocities in a similar manner to Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War. The silver lining for the broader population is the hope for an end to Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza.
If the Democrats and Kamala Harris struggle to choose between preserving Biden’s reputation and saving thousands of Palestinian lives, it calls into question their competence to govern effectively.
