US elections 2024: Democratic Party platform backs Biden’s approach to Gaza, Middle East policy
There will be very little change to President Joe Biden’s widely unpopular approach to Israel’s war on Gaza if he is reelected, a leaked draft of the Democratic Party’s platform for 2024 has revealed, indicating the party’s refusal to envisage any new headway in ending a war that has killed close to 40,000 Palestinians in 10 months.
The 80-page platform, released by Politico and which will be endorsed next month during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, includes a two-page section on the Middle East, in which it categorically condemns the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel that took place on 7 October and reiterates that “the United States wants to see Hamas defeated”.
The platform lists examples of Biden’s unwavering support for Israel’s war on Gaza, including the sending of arms shipments and providing a diplomatic shield for Israel at the United Nations during votes for a ceasefire and regarding concerns about human rights violations.
It also mentions that Biden is working “at the highest levels” to secure a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
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A ceasefire proposal was accepted by Hamas in early May, only to be rejected by Israel, which then launched an invasion of Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah.
The US responded by backing Israel, and weeks later released its version of a ceasefire agreement, which looked identical to the one that Hamas had accepted earlier.
The Biden administration is currently blaming Hamas for delaying the deal. Meanwhile, an Israeli news report published this week said that Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has suggested delaying the ceasefire agreement to help Biden lose his reelection to former President Donald Trump.
The platform goes on to advocate for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it says it opposes settlement expansion and “extremist settler violence” taking place in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli Knesset voted this week to oppose a two-state solution.
The platform says Biden’s ceasefire proposal would create conditions for a “better future for the Palestinian people”. At the same time, it leaves out a major demand from progressives, which is to condition US military aid to Israel.
Biden’s approach to Israel has led to mass pro-Palestinian protests all across the country, which have continued ten months into the war on Gaza.
Recent polling shows widespread disapproval of the president’s approach, with 57 percent of respondents to a New York Times/Siena College poll saying they are at odds with his handling of the war.
Additionally, more respondents, 46 percent, believe that Trump would do a better job handling the issue.
Core focus
In terms of the broader Middle East, the Democratic Party platform praises Biden for ensuring the Gaza war does not lead to a wider conflict in the region.
The platform’s core focus regarding the Middle East is to further advance the normalisation deals Israel signed with several Arab nations under the Trump administration, but the platform makes no mention of Trump’s brokering of those agreements.
It highlights the announcement of the India-Middle East Economic Corridor, a plan to establish railway lines and shipping lanes that will pass through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, and eventually reach Greece and Europe.
The platform also touts that Saudi Arabia opened its airspace to Israeli flights in 2022.
The Democratic Party argues that the aviation breakthrough is a sign that Biden would be able to broker a deal to normalise ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
However, Middle East Eye previously reported that Gulf states appear to be hedging their bets as the US presidential election draws near and Biden drags behind in the polls to former President Trump.
Iran
A large chunk of the Middle East section of the party platform deals with Iran. The Democratic Party says it is committed to “deter and defend against Iran and its terrorist surrogates”, citing its air strikes on the Iran-aligned Houthi group in Yemen beginning this year.
The platform says Trump acted with “fickleness and weakness” against Iran, and rebuked the former president’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal that was brokered by the Barack Obama administration.
That deal saw the US lift wide-ranging sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme.
Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and reimposed those sanctions, and after several months, Iran began to increase its enrichment of uranium above the limits set by the deal.
When Biden came into office, the administration entered negotiations in an attempt to reenter the deal, but those talks faltered last year.
Unlike its previous platform in 2020, the Democratic Party platform for 2024 doesn’t explicitly mention that it is seeking a return to the nuclear deal.
“President Biden remains committed to a diplomatic solution while standing resolute that Iran will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons,” it states.
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