US policy on Israel: Go bold, Joe

There are multiple reasons for President Joe Biden to change Washington’s approach to Israel-Palestine.

Up to this point, United States President Joe Biden has confounded his critics from the left, piloting a domestic agenda that is remarkably bold for a lifetime centrist and traditional Democrat. His stimulus and infrastructure bills drive forward an unabashedly liberal agenda. And while the voting rights and environmental bills he favours depend on the cooperation of more conservative Democrats, such as Joe Manchin, the direction is unambiguous. Biden has evidently imbibed important lessons from the Obama years. Tactically, he appears to not want to get mired into fruitless negotiations with bad-faith Republicans. Substantively, he is not apologising for or watering down policies that are popular with both the base and the median voter, such as raises in the minimum wage or increased taxes on high earners. On both scores, Biden represents a departure from his two most immediate Democratic predecessors in the White House, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, who often governed as if their primary concern was getting the approval of the Wall Street Journal editorial page.