Democratic politicians and commentators across the United States have been praising President Joe Biden since he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race on Sunday.
For example, Rep. Maxine Waters called Biden a “kind and decent man,” while former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised his “vision, values and leadership.”
But as political leaders heaped praise on Biden, bombs continued to fall on Gaza, killing dozens of people and triggering another wave of mass displacement in Khan Younis.
For many Palestinian rights advocates, the massacre and abuses in Gaza will define Biden's place in the history books, as the United States remains steadfast in its support for Israel's war on the Palestinian territory.
“He will be remembered for the hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded and displaced in Gaza,” said Abed Ayoub, executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC).
“There is no way around it. We will remember him as ‘Joe the Genocide.’”
Thank you, President Biden! I am one of your biggest supporters and was willing to stand with you during the Democratic Party nomination. However, you have decided to step aside and have endorsed your Vice President, Kamala Harris. He is a kind and decent man who is…
— Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) July 21, 2024
Since Israel's war on Gaza began on October 7, Biden has offered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government unconditional military and diplomatic support.
Only once has Biden held back a shipment of bombs to Israel over humanitarian concerns, and even then, he released part of that shipment a couple of months later, amid pressure from Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, Israel’s war has killed nearly 39,000 Palestinians, displaced hundreds of thousands, fueled a man-made hunger crisis and destroyed large parts of the territory. United Nations experts and other observers have warned of a “risk of genocide” in Gaza.
Ayoub told Al Jazeera that despite Biden's domestic achievements, the president will rank among the worst in US history because of his unconditional support for Israel.
The American Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR) echoed that comment: “Nothing will erase the fact that Biden’s legacy is, and always will be, genocide,” the group said in a statement.
Netanyahu's “bear hug”
The US president has been a staunch supporter of Israel throughout his decades-long political career.
He often calls himself a Zionist and maintains that Jews around the world would not be safe without Israel.
Biden turned that worldview into policy during his presidency, pushing former President Donald Trump’s pro-Israel doctrine. Biden kept the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem and refused to reverse the Trump-era decision to recognize Israel’s claims to the occupied Golan Heights in Syria.
He also aggressively promoted formal ties between Israel and Arab states, a goal Trump furthered with the 2020 Abraham Accords.
However, this push towards normalisation did not produce progress towards the recognition of an independent Palestinian state or towards dismantling systemic discrimination against Palestine.
The outbreak of the war in Gaza further underlined Biden's pro-Israeli policies.
Weeks after the conflict began, Biden traveled to Israel and publicly embraced Netanyahu in what many critics have described as a “bear hug.”
The gesture of kindness was widely seen as an endorsement of Netanyahu's response in Gaza after the Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7.
Even at the beginning of the conflict, human rights groups accused Israel of horrific violations that rose to the level of genocide: an attempt to destroy the Palestinian people.
In the first week alone, the Israeli military claimed to have launched 2,000 strikes in Gaza, a strip of land roughly the size of Las Vegas.
Since then, Biden has authorized continued arms transfers and more than $14 billion in additional aid to sustain Israel’s offensive in Gaza. His administration has also vetoed three U.N. Security Council proposals that would have called for a ceasefire.
Hatem Abudayyeh, president of the United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), said Biden will be remembered most for enabling Israel’s “crimes against humanity.”
“He could have turned off the money and weapons in October, but he allowed this genocide to happen. He is complicit and that is what will be written on his tombstone,” Abudayyeh told Al Jazeera.
Biden and the Palestinians
After entering politics in 1970, Biden quickly rose from local to national prominence, mounting a successful surprise campaign to represent Delaware in the U.S. Senate in 1972.
After nearly four decades in Congress, he became vice president under Barack Obama and, in 2021, won the presidency.
The president does not come from a political dynasty nor is he an exceptional orator. His success in politics is often attributed to his interpersonal skills and his ability to project empathy.
However, that feeling of compassion never extended to Palestinians, activists say.
“For nine and a half months, President Biden has funded and armed Israel’s brutal genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, making the U.S. government directly complicit in the murder of at least 39,000 people, including more than 15,000 children,” Jewish Voice for Peace Action said in a statement Sunday.
“Americans have watched in horror and outrage as Biden sent the Israeli government the weapons it used to wipe out entire generations of Palestinian families, destroy hospitals, bakeries, schools, mosques, churches, universities, refugee camps, homes, and Gaza’s entire health care system and electricity and water networks.”
Beyond politics, Biden's rhetoric at times seemed to dismiss Israeli atrocities and Palestinian suffering.
“I have no idea that the Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people have died. I'm sure innocent people have died and that's the price of waging war,” the US president said in October.
But that stance caused problems for Biden both domestically and internationally.
Even before Biden delivered a disastrous performance in the June 27 debate, the 81-year-old had begun to fall behind his Republican rival Trump in public opinion polls.
Some sections of the Democratic base — including young people, progressives, Arabs and Muslims — expressed frustration and anger at his support for Israel.
Groups like USCPR argued that Biden's age and his performance in the debates were only one factor in the pressure that forced him to drop out of the presidential race.
“It wasn’t Biden’s failed debate that proved he is unfit to lead,” USCPR said. “It was the tens of thousands of bombs he sent to kill Palestinian families. It was his callous, dystopian disregard for Palestinian lives.”
Other commentators also argued that Biden did not show enough concern for the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Aaron David Miller, a veteran former US official, described the situation bluntly in an interview with the New Yorker in April.
“Do I think Joe Biden has the same depth of feeling and empathy for the Palestinians in Gaza as he does for the Israelis? No, he doesn’t, and he doesn’t convey it. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” he said.
