Biden and the Middle East
As of this writing, the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas has held for 72 hours. The noises coming from key actors suggest that in contrast to the last eruption of violence in 2014, this one stands a good chance of holding for a spell.
The dynamics of the conflict are beyond the scope of a single 700-word column from someone who is not an expert on the Middle East. My only banal observation on that front is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas leadership have been really successful at forming a concert of hard-liners. These recurring, militarized crises do a great job of crowding out more moderate elements of both societies.
Instead, the hard-working staff here at Spoiler Alerts would like to focus on how the Biden administration handled the crisis and what that signifies for the president’s foreign policy worldview. As the cease-fire was coming into place, at least four significant stories had “behind the scenes” material about what Biden was doing during the past two weeks: Susan Glasser’s New Yorker column; a ticktock from Politico’s Nahal Toosi; Kevin Liptak, Kaitlan Collins and Jeff Zeleny’s CNN ticktock; and Michael Crowley and Annie Karni’s wrap-up for the New York Times.