Matthew Duss writes:

As president, Donald Trump made no secret of his admiration for repressive rulers around the world. Joe Biden campaigned on a promise to change that. He regularly criticized Donald Trump’s silence about repressive regimes and promised that a Biden administration would “hold to account those who perpetrate human rights abuses.” Since taking office he has repeated the refrain that “human rights will be the center of our foreign policy.”

Not only has Biden not honored this promise, day by day, his administration seems to be moving further and further from it. Having promised to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah” for its devastating war in Yemen and its assassination of Washington Post journalist and regime critic Jamal Khashoggi, among many other abuses, Biden reversed course shortly after taking office. The backdown culminated in his July 2022 trip to Saudi Arabia and has continued with multiple visits by senior administration officials since then, despite ongoing repression.

In Israel-Palestine, the administration has steadfastly refused to uphold international law or even to acknowledge that it is being violated on a daily basis. Israel has steadily consolidated its control over territories it occupied in 1967, corralled Palestinians into a set of disconnected bantustans, and cracked down on Palestinian civil society. Meanwhile, government-backed Israeli settlers carry out waves of terror attacks against Palestinian civilians, including a February raid on a Palestinian village that an Israeli officer referred to as a “pogrom.” With few exceptions, the administration’s response to all this has been silence. Its initial declaration that there must be “accountability” for the May 2022 killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by an Israeli soldier has been forgotten, despite considerable evidence that it was intentional. [Continue reading…]