Biden to Visit Israel At 'Critical Moment,' Blinken Says

Facts

• US Pres. Joe Biden will on Wednesday travel to Tel Aviv 'at a critical moment for Israel, for the region and for the world,' US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said from the Israeli capital on Tuesday.¹
• Blinken was back in Israel for the second time in five days. After first arriving last week, he traveled to Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. In Jordan, alongside King Abdullah II, Blinken met with the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.²
• Blinken announced that after Israel, Biden will also visit the Jordanian capital of Amman where he is also set to meet with Abbas and Abdullah, as well as Egyptian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. They have lobbied Blinken and the US to allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza — which is facing a humanitarian disaster including a lack of clean drinking water and overflowing hospitals running out of electricity.¹
• Since Hamas' attack on Israel — killing 1.4K Israelis, most of those civilians — Israel has carried out a campaign of constant airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. On Monday, health authorities there said that at least 2.7K were killed and more than 9.7K others were wounded; in addition to the dead, some 1.2K people across Gaza are believed buried under the rubble with their condition unknown, health officials said.³
• According to reports in Haaretz and the Washington Post, the announcement of Biden's visit was delayed until Israeli leadership agreed on corridors for humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, as well as the creation of safe areas for civilians that would not be bombed. Biden and Blinken will also have to wade through avoiding a wider war with Iran, which has increasingly traded charged remarks with Israel, as well as a hostage crisis.¹
• On Monday, after the hostage number increased from 126 to 155 a day earlier, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it knew of 199 Israeli hostages in Gaza. Hamas later claimed that it had roughly 250 people held as hostages, further claiming that 22 were killed in Israeli airstrikes. Later on Monday, a Hamas official demanded that 6K Palestinian prisoners be released in exchange for the hostages held in Israel.⁴

Sources: ¹The Guardian (a), ²The New York Times, ³Associated Press and ⁴The Guardian (b).

Narratives

• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by The Guardian. Biden is making this historic war-time visit to Israel at a time when there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, threats of a wider war with Iran, and a tense hostage negotiation between Hamas and Israel. This is a pivotal moment for Biden and his administration as he navigates extraordinarily complex waters.
• Pro-Israel narrative, as provided by The Times of Israel. Biden's wartime visit to Israel is a demonstration of a key ally coming to stand in solidarity with the country following Hamas' brutal assault on Oct. 7. Biden will reaffirm Washington’s commitment to the security of the Jewish state, and is expected to declare that Israel has an 'obligation' to defend itself and act to prevent future attacks, meaning Israel will have a relatively free hand as far as the US is concerned.
• Pro-Palestine narrative, as provided by Middle East Eye. What Israel has done to the Palestinian people in Gaza is nothing short of collective punishment that violates international law. Thousands of civilians have been killed, and who knows how many more are filling the halls of already undersupplied hospitals. Western countries need to immediately facilitate the lifting of the blockade — Biden and Blinken are clearly concerned and aware of the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe.

Predictions