Contrary to popular opinion, President Joe Biden's visit to the Near East this week isn't just about oil—or at least it shouldn't be. While it's true that Russia's war in Ukraine has created an energy crisis that demands tighter bonds with our oil-producing allies, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Mr. Biden's meetings in Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and Saudi Arabia can also unify and fortify our allies in the formation of a new regional order.
The cornerstone of this order is America's strong relationship with Israel, the guarantor of indigenous Jewish sovereignty and security—and it's important to repeat that loudly and often. American elites imagine themselves honest brokers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Mr. Biden will pay visits to the Jewish and Arab sides of Jerusalem to emphasize that point. But, of course, the idea that America is neutral is a delusion, as any Palestinian will tell you. As the heir of the Hebraic moral and intellectual tradition, the U.S. has always been instinctively biased toward the Jews.
Bias is not always a bad thing; every country feels preferential attachments to other countries, peoples, and cultures that are linked to its own self-understanding. Indeed, history shows that America's pro-Israel bias doesn't always translate into anti-Palestinian sentiment. In numerical terms, the U.S. is the most pro-Palestinian country in the world, having donated more than five billion taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority, the Muslim-Arab proto-government of the Palestinian Territories. No one knows the non-zero-sum nature of the situation better than Mr. Biden, who will express U.S. solidarity with the Palestinians even as he reaffirms the unbreakable bond with Israel. Both of these things can, and must, be emphasized.
But to the extent that Mr. Biden hopes to renew progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, he needs to push our Palestinian partners to address their internal dysfunctions. While the occupation remains the number-one issue for Palestinians, intra-Palestinian conflicts inhibit movement toward peace or any tangible progress for regular people. The secular-national Fatah bloc—due to its renowned corruption, its failure to acquire rights and benefits for Palestinians through negotiation with Israel, the unpopularity of its aging leader Mahmoud Abbas, and the internal split between its feuding factions—is getting weaker relative to its Islamist rival Hamas. Unless these problems are addressed, there will be no improvement for Palestinians in the near to medium term.
The primary objective of Mr. Biden's visit—and the top priority for America's diplomatic efforts in the future—should be consolidation of the emerging relationships between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, possibly into a "Middle East NATO," as Jordan's King Abdullah II describes it. In his all-important visit to Jedda, the U.S. president will be discussing the possibility of more formal ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem, a crucial piece of the new "Abrahamic" axis. Republicans and Democrats are eager to pull America back from the Near East, and the best way to do that is to empower our allies to take the lead.
It's not enough to just consolidate this axis; even better is to expand it, especially into Syria and Lebanon, where Iranian aggression is destabilizing and destroying the region as well as many ethnic and religious minorities that live there. It's also important to foster, as much as possible, a shared culture of mutual respect that will give the Abrahamic axis an enduring moral foundation of pluralism and freedom.
Though Americans would gladly welcome a respite at the pump, the president shouldn't allow current exigencies to set the bar too low for this important trip. His political advisers might warn against building upon his predecessor's signature foreign policy initiative, but the potential upside is simply too great for Biden to pass up. Helping cement relationships that could put the region on a course toward greater stability after decades of costly U.S. intervention would be transformative—a foreign policy win this president needs and a legacy achievement any president would be proud of.
Robert Nicholson is founder and president of The Philos Project, a nonprofit that promotes positive Christian engagement in the Near East.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
