Since my political awareness began to form, particularly as a university student specializing in political science about two-thirds of a century ago, I recall that the question of which of the two main candidates in the U.S. presidential elections is better for Arab interests has been present in every election. This is not surprising in itself, as the United States has been the world’s most powerful nation since the establishment of Israel and remains so today. It has also been Israel’s main supporter since its inception. Consequently, whether the U.S. president is strongly or less inclined towards Israel can significantly impact Arab interests, particularly regarding the Palestinian cause. Although this issue is not the only important one in Arab-American relations, other matters such as trade, cultural exchange, and development patterns do not involve the same polarization that typically surrounds the Palestinian issue. As a result, the Palestinian cause always takes precedence when considering which presidential candidate might be more favorable.
This article aims to offer an objective answer, as much as neutrality in political analysis allows. In this context, I present two observations. The first relates to past experiences concerning the potential differences in American presidents’ positions towards Israel, depending on their party affiliation. The second observation highlights the unique nature of the current election race, which is nearing its conclusion. These two points will help us arrive at an analytical conclusion at the end of this opinion piece.
Lessons from past experiences:
From a historical perspective, it is clear that American bias toward Israel is not a partisan issue, meaning it persists regardless of the party affiliation of U.S. presidents. Even those who argue that Republican presidents are generally more biased toward Israel must contend with the fact that the only historical exception to strong U.S. support for Tel Aviv came from former Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, who served from 1953 to 1961. During his tenure, Eisenhower insisted on Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai and Gaza after the failure of the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt, which had been carried out in collusion with Britain and France.
There have also been other unconventional stances by Republican presidents, such as when former President George H.W. Bush withheld $10 billion in loan guarantees that Israel had requested to accommodate Soviet Jewish immigrants. He stated at the time that he would not grant the guarantees unless Israel froze settlement construction in the territories it had occupied in the 1967 war. Similarly, former President George W. Bush proposed a road map in 2003 that culminated in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1515, which called for the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005. Thus, while Democratic presidents such as John F. Kennedy (1961-1963), Jimmy Carter (1977-1981), and Barack Obama (2009-2016) took positive steps from an Arab perspective, so too did Republican presidents, as we have seen.
An examination of the positions of all successive American presidents, whether Republican or Democratic, reveals two clear facts: First, the dominant pattern is unequivocal support for Israel, which naturally takes the form of unconditional diplomatic, economic, and military support. Second, what were described in the previous paragraph as positive positions taken by either Democratic or Republican presidents were either not fully tested—Kennedy was assassinated before his dialogue with Gamal Abdel Nasser on the Arab-Israeli conflict could yield results—or were short-lived, such as George H.W. Bush’s 1991 loan guarantee decision, which he reversed the following year after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir offered a limited freeze on settlement construction. Others, like U.N. Security Council Resolution 1515, were not implemented, or they were made at the last moment, such as when the administrations of Carter and Obama abstained from voting in the Security Council at the end of their terms on resolutions condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Some actions lacked real teeth, such as the current Biden administration’s endorsement of a two-state solution following the repercussions of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, without taking any actual steps to implement it.
In conclusion, past experiences indicate a consistent bias from American presidents, regardless of their party affiliations. Thus, former President Eisenhower’s 1957 stance becomes an outlier, and all the other positions that could be seen as partial deviations from this bias ultimately amounted to nothing, as shown by the previous analysis. Therefore, many believe that asking which U.S. presidential candidate is preferable serves no purpose, as the result is the same from the perspective of Arab interests. However, some argue that there is a strong reason to ask this question, particularly in the upcoming November elections, because Donald Trump’s bias toward Israel during his first term exceeded the usual limits of American policy. This brings us to the second observation in this article.
The Uniqueness of the 2024 Elections
It is generally agreed that the differences in the policies of American presidents regarding Arab issues, especially the Palestinian cause, do not warrant the long-standing debate over which candidate, Democrat or Republican, is better for Arab interests. However, some argue that this debate is justified in the case of the upcoming presidential elections on November 5, 2024, due to the fact that Trump is not just any presidential candidate. He is the former president who took a series of unprecedented steps in favor of Israel that no American president before him dared to take.
In 1995, the U.S. Congress passed the “Jerusalem Embassy Act,” which stated that “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of Israel” and that the U.S. embassy should be moved to Jerusalem within five years. Bill Clinton was the president at the time, followed by George W. Bush and Barack Obama, both of whom served two terms. None of these three presidents implemented the law, in line with longstanding U.S. policy that the future of Jerusalem should not be subject to unilateral actions, especially since the United States opposed Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem following the 1967 war.
However, on December 6, 2017, less than a year into his presidency, Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. embassy there by May of the following year. In March 2019, he went further by recognizing Israel’s annexation of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. In November of the same year, his administration announced that the U.S. no longer viewed Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law. Thus, Trump reversed the policies of all previous American presidents since 1967 regarding the Arab lands occupied by Israel in that war. In 2020, he capped his support for Israel by unveiling his plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, known as the “Deal of the Century.”
As Trump campaigns for a return to the White House in the 2024 presidential election, he continues to advocate for Israel, calling for an end to the war in Gaza, but in a way that ensures Israel achieves its goals in the conflict. A key part of his campaign against his opponent, Kamala Harris, is based on portraying her as anti-Israel. He warns that Israel will cease to exist within two years if Harris becomes president, inadvertently delivering a fatal insult to Israel by implying that its survival depends on U.S. presidential policy.
From Trump’s previous term and his current campaign, many argue that there is no real comparison between him and the Democratic candidate from the perspective of Arab interests. Harris supports a two-state solution, seeks a ceasefire, and advocates for the exchange of prisoners and hostages. Her advisor has even promised to review U.S. policy toward Israel if she wins the presidency. However, critics of this view argue that based on past U.S. policy toward Israel, as we have seen, American bias in favor of Israel has been consistent, regardless of which party is in power. Any moderate positions attributed to the Democrats are either short-lived or come too late, and more importantly, they lack teeth—meaning they are not accompanied by real pressure on Tel Aviv to turn these reasonable positions into tangible changes on the ground.
This is evident in the current situation. Statements from President Biden, his Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and other members of his administration regarding a two-state solution, ceasefire, opposition to displacement, and the need for aid to enter Gaza are countless. Yet none of these statements have resulted in any positive developments on the ground. Some even accuse the current U.S. administration of colluding with Israel to create the impression that progress is being made toward ending the war, as suggested by overly optimistic statements about the imminent conclusion of a ceasefire agreement. This, they argue, is intended to “pacify” the Palestinian and Arab sides, giving Israel the opportunity to achieve its goals in the conflict. From this perspective, they believe that a president with an openly pro-Israel stance might be better for Arab interests, as it could motivate the necessary response to defend those interests.
In conclusion, the analysis suggests that the question this article seeks to address might be irrelevant. The reality is that the U.S. bias toward Israel transcends party lines and the personal attributes of the presidents who have occupied the White House. This does not mean that there are no differences between them, but these differences have never led to significant improvements for Arab interests. Even when these differences resulted in setbacks for Arab causes, as during Trump’s presidency, the roots of these setbacks lie in the Palestinian and Arab conditions that allowed them to happen. Therefore, the more pertinent question to ask is not which U.S. presidential candidate is better for Arab interests, but rather what Arabs themselves should do to influence U.S. decisions affecting their interests. The scope for action in this regard is broad, especially given the shifts in some segments of U.S. public opinion toward Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank. But that is another story entirely.
