Biden’s not Trump, but he won’t let Israel’s security be compromised

In two months’ time and four years after Joe Biden last walked out of the White House, he will be back. This time, taking the oath as President of the United States of America with Kamala Harris, the first woman and woman of color to become Vice President.Taking over from Donald Trump, his administration will have many key decisions to make and policies to implement, many of them likely to reverse those implemented by the previous administration, especially how it deals with Iran and its hostile actions in the region.So how will that affect Israel, mainly it’s security?Unlike what his detractors claim, Biden has been supportive of Israel and was involved in the 2016 negotiations between the two allies that cemented a $38 billion, ten-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) for defense aid-the largest military aid package in US history.But his support for Israel didn’t start when he was vice president under President Barack Obama – he’s considered himself a Zionist and has been one of Washington’s most outspoken advocates for US aid to Israel for decades.He’s retold the story of his meeting with then Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in 1973 during his first trip overseas as a 30-year-old senator. That meeting, just 40 days before the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War, was “one of the most consequential meetings I’ve ever had in my life.”After touring Israel, he sat down with Meir who explained why the Jewish State’s situation was dire.

Though impressed, Biden is said to have found the meeting depressing and when Meir asked him why he likes to recount,  “I said, ‘Well, my God, Madam Prime Minister,’ and I turned to look at her. I said, ‘The picture you paint.’ She said, ‘Oh, don’t worry. We have’ — I thought she only said this to me. She said, ‘We have a secret weapon in our conflict with the Arabs: You see, we have no place else to go.’”Close to 50 years later, Israel’s security situation is still not perfect. Though peace deals have been made with several Arab countries, there are still enemies like Iran and their proxy Hezbollah as well as Hamas who have vowed to destroy Israel.Israel considers Iran and its nuclear program to be its number one concern, and Israel’s hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw eye-to-eye with the Trump administration on how to deal with the Islamic Republic.While Biden’s administration is expected to be day and night from Trump’s, he’s campaigned and vowed to guarantee Israel’s QME and America’s “unbreakable commitment to Israel’s security.” Since the Trump administration withdrew from the Iran-deal in 2018, relations between Iran and the United States have taken a turn for the worse. Though Biden has signaled that he will try to bring Iran back into the nuclear deal, he’s also acknowledged that there’s no guarantee Iran would return to compliance with the agreement.Tehran has not only continued to work on its ballistic missile arsenal, but Iranian proxies like Hezbollah have also become emboldened and have strengthened their foothold in the Syrian Golan. Despite what Trump supporters claim, Iran extended its tentacles across the Middle East during his administration. While the targeted killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani has put a major dent in Tehran’s regional aspirations, Iran has emerged as a dominant player in Syria, so much that should the civil war ever end, it is unlikely that they would ever leave. Israel has been carrying out its war-between-war campaign against Iran since 2013, striking thousands of targets in Syria, and according to foreign reports in neighboring Iraq, in order to prevent the smuggling of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the entrenchment of its forces in Syria where they could easily act against Israel.Tehran has ruled out halting its missile program or changing its regional policy, wanting instead the new US administration to change its policy. But despite not being as hawkish on Iran as his predecessor, Biden won’t go easy on the Islamic Republic. The Iranian presence on Israel’s northern borders and its continued support to terror groups in the Gaza Strip along with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs are another issue that Biden’s administration must contend with.Those are key issues for Israel’s security. Israel’s military has in recent years drilled for a future war with Hezbollah, which aided by Iran has rebuilt their arsenal to some 130,000 rockets and missiles aimed at the Israeli homefront. The most recent drill, Lethal Arrow, held two weeks ago took place after the military completed several offensive plans for the northern front and was aimed to improve the IDF’s offensive capabilities at all echelons from Chief of Staff down to troops in the field.Israel does not want a war with Hezbollah, or Iran. There are still millions of Israelis in the north who do not have access to a bomb shelter and the defense establishment has said that such a war would be devastating. Though Netanyahu has now lost a good friend in the White House with Trump gone, a full-out confrontation with the Iranians and Hezbollah is both Jerusalem’s and Washington’s worst nightmare. And both leaders will do anything they can to make sure that it doesn’t happen. Biden isn’t Trump. He consults and listens to his team before making decisions. And that, at the end of the day, is good for Israel.Because being impulsive in the Middle East is not a winning strategy.
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