Campaigning for a second term, Joe Biden wants to unite Americans behind the defense of Israel and Ukraine. Returning Wednesday evening from Tel Aviv where he made a visit of all dangers, the US president will address Thursday evening from the Oval Office on the "response (of the United States) to Hamas' terrorist attacks on Israel and Russia's brutal aggression against Ukraine," his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday. This address to the nation is scheduled for 20 p.m. local time, midnight in France.
Joe Biden traveled to Israel on Wednesday to assure the country of his support after Hamas' bloody attack on its soil on October 7. It has obtained a green light from its ally for humanitarian aid in Gaza, and secured the entry of a convoy of at least 20 trucks into its border with Egypt.
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Back in the United States, the 80-year-old Democrat believes he can forge a political, or at least budgetary, consensus by joining two war-torn countries, supported by Washington and which he has visited, in the same cause. Before his visit to Kyiv in February, no president had ever been to a conflict zone that was not under the control of the U.S. military, so Biden has done so twice.
According to a source close to the discussions interviewed on Tuesday, the White House wants to call for a joint $100 billion package for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the migration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. While Joe Biden's Republican opponents are hesitant about military aid to Ukraine, they are on the contrary the first to call for strong support for Israel, a more decisive stance on immigration, and a very firm stance on China.
Between praise and criticism
However, the Republican president's ambition could come up against the institutional chaos in Congress, which is made up of the Democratic-majority Senate and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. The latter is currently paralyzed by the absence of a "speaker" on its perch. The hard right failed again on Wednesday to appoint one of its own to this strategic position. The impasse has also revived concerns about the risk of a federal government shutdown if Congress fails to pass an annual budget by November 17.
Faced with this chaos, Joe Biden wants to present himself as a man of decision, of action, when the polls show that the electorate is worried about his age and energy. But Biden's stance on Israel has earned him praise even in conservative circles. Richard Haas, a former diplomatic adviser in George W. Bush's administration, called the US president's speech in Tel Aviv "masterful."
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Conversely, the fact that Joe Biden has managed to bring a few trucks of humanitarian aid into the Palestinian enclave will not be enough for the left wing of the Democratic Party. Some of its representatives are calling for more distance from the Israeli government as well as more empathy for Palestinian civilians, caught up in Israel's relentless bombardment and massively displaced to the south. At least 100 people occupied a U.S. congressional building on Wednesday to demand that lawmakers and the Biden administration press for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Aware of the risk of fatigue on the part of the great American ally, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went to Congress in September to try to convince the United States to help him cross the "finish line" against Russia. "We are the United States of America, for God's sake, the most powerful nation... of the history of the world. We can take care of" Ukraine and Israel at the same time, Biden said Sunday on CBS.