Skip to main content
Donate to the 95 years appeal
Did Biden just get tougher on Israel?
The new rhetoric and promises of increased aid to Palestinians is not a policy shift, it is a strategy shift, as Democrats start to worry about losing the White House in November, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
EMPTY WORDS: President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address at the Capitol, March 7 2024, in Washington

IT would be easy to assume from the words spoken by US President Joe Biden during his March 7 State of the Union address, and by US Vice-President Kamala Harris in Alabama earlier in the week, that there has been a shift in the official US stance toward Israel’s continued genocidal war in Gaza.

While former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was still telling a Berlin audience late last month that “Israel has a right to defend itself” (before being roundly heckled), Biden, in his March 7 address to Congress and the US people, said only that “Israel has a right to go after Hamas.”

Harris, speaking in Selma, Alabama, the site of the brutal attack on civil rights protesters 59 years ago, said: “There must be an immediate ceasefire for at least six weeks.”

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
US President Donald Trump during a press conference with Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Chequers, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, on day two of the president's second state visit to the UK, September 18, 2025
Features / 19 September 2025
19 September 2025

Women opponents of the Trump regime fear his misogynist, racist and anti-immigrant views are taking hold in Britain, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER, as protests against his visit hit London’s streets

People taking part in a Tommy Robinson-led Unite the Kingdom march and rally in central London. Picture date: Saturday September 13, 2025
Features / 15 September 2025
15 September 2025

But the beneath the racism and misogyny of the far right lies a shared grievance with the left — Starmer’s complete betrayal of working people, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Arthur Ashe
Men’s tennis / 5 September 2025
5 September 2025

Still the only black man to win the US Open tennis title, a statue of the legendary champion, Arthur Ashe, is now the only one remaining on Monument Avenue in his Richmond, Virginia hometown, where confederate leaders of the Civil War were also once displayed, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Courageous: Vanessa Redgrave
Features / 13 August 2025
13 August 2025

Danni Perry’s flag display at the Royal Opera House sparked 182 performers to sign a solidarity letter that cancelled the Tel Aviv Tosca production, while Leonardo DiCaprio invests in Tel Aviv hotels, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

Similar stories
Destroyed buildings by Israeli bombardments as seen inside t
Features / 18 January 2025
18 January 2025
After 46,000 dead and countless more from disease and starvation, Palestinians can celebrate a truce, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER, yet even as the Democrat and Republican leaders scramble to take credit, Israel continues killing
FACING ANNIHILATION: Palestinians line up to receive the lit
Features / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
US bombs are responsible for the decimation of Gaza. Biden could still stop it. Instead he’s extended aid, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Cartoon: Steve
Features / 3 November 2024
3 November 2024
US Democrats are bracing for election night and the real possibility of a second Trump presidency, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
Democratic US presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Har
Features / 8 October 2024
8 October 2024
Donald Trump calls her ‘comrade Kamala’ and portrays her as a left-wing radical — but as a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris is endorsing more centrist positions than she did as a progressive senator, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER