THE war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, the biggest foreign-policy challenge of Joe Biden’s presidency so far, has highlighted his extensive experience in diplomacy and national security, going back to the years he had served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and later as former president Barack Obama’s deputy.

President Biden’s stand with Israel during the war, with some referring to it as a “bear hug”, reflects his long-time support for the Jewish state, traditionally a major component of the Democratic Party’s foreign-policy agenda. It is also in line with his credentials as a liberal internationalist backing a democratic nation threatened by forces of totalitarianism – in this case, the Islamist terrorist group Hamas, and in the case of the Ukraine war, as seen in the authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Biden’s backing for Israel by deploying two US aircraft carriers and a contingent of marines to the Middle East has also stemmed from realpolitik geo-strategic considerations.