vor three weeks ago, Joe Biden signed an interim budget that included no funding for Ukraine. It was the compromise that the Republicans willing to govern had made with Biden’s Democrats in Congress to avert a “shutdown”. The hardcore Trumpists in Congress had voted against it; She and her matador Donald Trump would have liked to celebrate the extensive paralysis of the Western leading nation as a stage victory in their great campaign of destruction. But right up to the White House, they had anchored the fear of being seen as “globalists” for whom the well-being of a foreign people was more important than that of their own nation.
Since then, events have accelerated. A handful of radical right-wingers deposed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to punish him for collaborating with America’s perceived nemesis, the Democrats; Republicans are more divided than ever. Days later, the Islamist Hamas forced a war on Israel that pushed the Ukrainian-Russian trench warfare into the background.
Despite all the shock over the terror in the Holy Land, Biden saw an opportunity in it. Because no matter how impetuously the Republicans march towards nationalism under Trump’s spell, they do not want to be overtaken as protectors of Israel. That’s why Biden makes supporting Israel and Ukraine two sides of the same coin. The president has now defended America’s role as a global power of order so robustly, as if he was seeking redemption for his previous despondency towards the nationalists.
Lots of fires in Washington
Biden knows the differences between the two major crises. But he equated Hamas and Putin in one respect: both wanted to wipe out a democratic neighbor. It is in the USA’s own interest to stop terrorists and dictatorial aggressors. Biden used traditional formulas that seem to some in his party to be out of date: Madeleine Albright’s word about America as an “indispensable” nation and Thomas Jefferson’s phrase about the United States as a “beacon for the world.”
Of course, Biden knows that the world’s democrats (and their enemies!) may currently see many flames when they look at Washington, but they can hardly see the blazing example of a powerful democracy committed to freedom. His speech was a question from a commander in chief, but also from a campaigner to the people: Which America do you want?
The contrast couldn’t be sharper. While Biden scored with empathy in Tel Aviv, supporters of Trump loyalist and speaker candidate Jim Jordan bombarded his opponents within the party with hateful messages and even death threats. Republican lawmakers aired their personal animosities in front of cameras. Not to mention Trump, who, in a bizarre appearance days earlier, had received applause when he called the Islamist terrorist group Hezbollah “witty” and Israel’s defense minister a “complete idiot.”
When it comes to Israel, the Republicans cannot be overtaken
Biden outwardly ignores this tragedy. He wants to apply to Congress for high eight-figure sums to support Israel and Ukraine, even though the first chamber is unable to act without a speaker. In this way, he increases the pressure on the Republicans – or the price they pay for their frivolous mudslinging. Because it is their supporters who say in a survey, 84 percent of them say that supporting Israel is in the interests of the USA. Jerusalem is especially sacred to evangelicals, and some Republicans see Israel as the spearhead in a global fight against Islamism or even Islam.
In Biden’s own party, the proportion of Israel supporters is lower; This is also where the strong antipathy towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his alliance with the extreme right comes through. However, the difference is much more stark in Ukraine: 87 percent of Democrats but only 49 percent of Republicans still believe after twenty months of war that Kiev aid is serving their own country. There’s a lot of domestic politics in this: a defiant reaction to Democratic attempts to portray Trump as Putin’s lackey, and an echo of Trump’s attacks on the president’s son Hunter Biden, who did business in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj recently had a lot of reason to fear that the West’s solidarity with Israel would come at the expense of his country. If Biden’s calculations work, the aid to Israel could also benefit Ukraine. But that would require more Republicans to recognize that the world is facing more important crossroads than the primaries in this or that congressional district.
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