Israel, Gaza violence overshadows Biden's domestic plans
President Joe Biden’s efforts to spotlight his infrastructure plan are being overshadowed by the escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians
May 18, 2021, 11:52 PM
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The CDC announced last week that vaccinated people can go without masks indoors or outdoors in most cases.
The Associated PressDEARBORN, Mich. -- President Joe Biden’s efforts to spotlight his big infrastructure plans are suddenly being overshadowed by the escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians, the conflict sparking protests during his visit to a Ford electric vehicle center in Michigan on Tuesday as the White House faced growing pressure to intervene.
Biden, who planned to use the two week-stretch before Memorial Day to build Republican support for his $2.3 trillion package, visited a Ford plant in Dearborn to make his case that his plans could help steer the country toward a bright electric-car future.
But any presidential script is subject to real-world rewrites, and Biden faces rising pressure to weigh in more forcefully to stop the Middle East violence — as, by a scheduling quirk, he visited a city that is almost half Arab American.
In a speech at the plant, Biden made only passing mention of the conflict, warmly addressing Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan as she sat in the audience, saying he would pray that her grandmother and other relatives were well in the West Bank.
“I promise you I’m going to do everything to see that they are,” Biden said.
Biden also met Tlaib and fellow Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell earlier at the Detroit airport, where all three huddled on the tarmac for several minutes in what appeared to be an animated conversation. Tlaib has publicly pressed Biden to get behind a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire — a measure that the U.S. has blocked from moving forward.
“He was very compassionate — he listened,” Dingell said of Biden. “He’s deeply concerned.”
The Biden administration has been conducting what it calls quiet diplomacy while declining to press for an immediate cease-fire by close ally Israel and Hamas. But privately, Biden administration officials have encouraged the Israelis to wind down their bombardment of Gaza.
Officials have been told by the Israelis that the operations could conclude in a matter of days.
The White House has made the calculation that the Israelis will not respond to international resolutions or public demands by the U.S. and that the greatest leverage is behind-the-scenes pressure, officials said. At the same time, the White House is mindful that the longer the conflict goes, the greater chance of a very-high-casualty event or other provocative action by either side that could make reaching a cease-fire more difficult.
All the while, Hamas rockets and Israeli airstrikes continued for a ninth day. At least 213 Palestinians and 12 people in Israel have died.
To this point in Biden's young term, foreign policy has taken a back seat. The president has stressed the need to first focus on domestic matters — taming the COVID-19 pandemic and reshaping the economy — to prove that democracies can still compete with global autocracies, namely China.
But the intractable conflict in Gaza has derailed that narrative.
Aboard Air Force One for the flight to Michigan, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was peppered with questions about the administration's response to the violence before she was asked about electric cars. She defended Biden's cautious approach to this point.
“He’s been doing this long enough to know that the best way to end an international conflict is typically not to debate it in public," she said.
During his tour of the Dearborn facilities, Biden kept the focus on jobs. The president, a car enthusiast, marveled at the new technology — he even took a truck for a quick test drive — while stressing the importance of his infrastructure plan.
“The future of the auto industry is electric. There’s no turning back,” Biden said. "The real question is whether we’ll lead or we’ll fall behind in the race to the future.”
There were protests outside in Dearborn, which is 47% Arab American, most of them Muslim, the highest percentage among cities in the U.S. Outside the local police department, about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from where Biden spoke, hundreds of people of Arab descent chanted, “Free, Free Palestine!” and waved Palestine flags. Amer Zahr, leader of a group called New Generation for Palestine, said Biden is “not welcome in Dearborn today.”
“He is funding the murder of our families," Zahr said. "It’s ethnic cleansing. It’s that simple. This is not very complicated."
