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FOCUS: Abigail Tracy | "Unwavering Support for Israel Is Untenable": Joe Biden's State Department Wants His Thumb on the Scale in the Middle East
Abigail Tracy, Vanity Fair
Tracy writes: "Joe Biden is facing increasing calls from the left flank of the Democratic Party to confront the crisis in Gaza - and from a diplomatic corps dismayed that the president has not appointed an ambassador to Israel, four months into his presidency, as the conflict stretches into its 11th day."
Biden’s left flank is pushing for harsher criticism of the Israeli government as it wages a bombing campaign in Gaza—a feeling that’s echoed at State. Meanwhile, the president hasn’t even named an ambassador to Israel.
oe Biden is facing increasing calls from the left flank of the Democratic Party to confront the crisis in Gaza—and from a diplomatic corps dismayed that the president has not appointed an ambassador to Israel, four months into his presidency, as the conflict stretches into its 11th day. “You have these delays, which on a good day would be problematic, but now—as we’re seeing in Israel—are downright dangerous,” Brett Bruen, a former foreign service officer, told me. “We don’t have leadership. We don't have somebody who can go over and talk with senior Israeli leaders in the embassy.”
The Biden administration has kept its focus trained on domestic policy, fixated on ending the COVID crisis and legislating the U.S. economy out of the red. The eruption of violence in Gaza and Israel is the first international crisis his administration has faced, and the engagement has been minimal—a stark deviation from past administrations. Biden first offered statements of support for Israel’s right to defend itself, seen as giving a greenlight to its deadly bombing campaign in Gaza, before telling Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a phone call Wednesday that he “expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a cease-fire.” “The greenlight that Biden provided—because he sees no margin in picking a fight with Netanyahu over Hamas, which is a foreign terrorist organization—has turned to yellow,” Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and State Department veteran who worked on the Middle East peace process, told me. “I think everybody wants to avoid a situation where the yellow light gets to red and you get an ultimatum on the part of the president and a major fight with Israel, which frankly is not what you need for a president whose primary agenda is domestic, and who is approaching one of the most critical periods of his presidency.”
Former diplomats I spoke with were critical of the Biden administration for what they see as an abdication of responsibility, saying the slow pace of appointments has begun to have an effect. In addition to having no ambassador in Israel, the administration just last month announced its intent to nominate Barbara Leaf, the former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, but she has yet to be confirmed. “Even if the administration is happy to send the message that the Middle East is not the centerpiece of their foreign policy, wouldn’t they like to at least be able to conduct diplomacy at a level higher than a deputy assistant secretary?” a former ambassador who served in the Middle East said. “Barbara Leaf is an experienced and effective diplomat, but she isn’t yet confirmed. And frankly, sending a deputy assistant secretary to the region to deal with this sort of violence just isn’t high-level enough,” a former senior State official said. “This would be a smart moment to bring back a retired ambassador with strong Middle East experience to be acting. Or to be an envoy to the region. Or to be acting ambassador to Israel to give the U.S. some greater heft on the ground to deal with this.”
The growing sense that the political ground is shifting in regard to the U.S.-Israel relationship extends to the State Department. As Biden has come under fire from the progressive left flank of his party, “I think there’s a fairly strong sense among the mid-level officers that the traditional unwavering support for Israel is untenable. This is not the same as the decade-long tension that existed between the Congress—always in Israel’s corner—and State—much more in the hands of Arabists and realpolitikers who wanted to maintain U.S. influence in the Arab world,” a second former ambassador who served in the region told me. “No, this is based more on a generational change, and a more woke set of FSOs is unhappy with current policy just as they’re unhappy with the still-unreformed personnel policies at State.”
As such, close attention is being paid to whom Biden ultimately appoints as the U.S. ambassador to Israel. “I think with the situation being so bad at the moment, we don’t have the luxury of sending in a political appointee. We have to send in someone who from day one can move quickly to resolve the crisis and to stabilize the situation,” Bruen said. “This is a country that requires someone who understands delicate diplomacy.” Tom Nides, a current Morgan Stanley executive who served as deputy secretary of state for management and resources from 2011 to 2013, is seen as the front-runner for the post. “Nides is an example of the melding of someone who’s politically well connected and has the trust and confidence of the president, and the president’s trust is everything in this administration. Nides has that,” Miller, who knows Nides well, said. But while Nides’s appointment is certainly not a done deal, sources I spoke with stressed that there is no expectation that a career diplomat will be tapped for the position.
Diplomats say that the vacancy at the U.S. embassy in Israel is part of a broader issue, as frustrations grow within the diplomatic ranks over the pace at which Biden—who pledged to rebuild the State Department, corroded under the stewardship of Donald Trump’s secretaries of state, Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo—is filling high-level positions. “The pace of appointments in general is really disappointing. At this rate we will be 25% done with this term before there is a staffed government,” the first former ambassador said. “It’s hard to believe that diplomacy is a priority when so many State Department positions are unfilled at so many levels. Even regional assistant secretaries weren’t nominated until recently.”
“Folks at State and former State officials are all ready to have people confirmed and in places, both State Department assistant secretary jobs and ambassadors,” the former senior State official, who is still in touch with many of their former colleagues, said. “It hurts our diplomacy when we don’t have confirmed senior officials in place both in Washington and at embassies overseas.”
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