Graphic by Karishma Ramkarran ’27 via Canva
BY KARISHMA RAMKARRAN ’27
MANAGING EDITOR OF CONTENT
On Oct. 15, the departments of politics and international relations and the McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives cosponsored a talk with award-winning journalist Akbar Shahid Ahmed. A diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Sun, Ahmed was invited to speak about his newly released book, “Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel’s War in Gaza.” He was joined by Professor of Politics and International Relations Sohail Hashmi, who directed the talk’s content through questions about Ahmed’s work. As a small number of students were gathered in the room, Hashmi encouraged the talk to be a conversation with all in attendance.
The conversation, which took place in the rather intimate Stinson Room in Williston Library, introduced Ahmed’s investigative and detailed account of the decision-making of former President Joe Biden and his advisors directly following the events of Oct. 7, 2023. Ahmed, who has won a Writer’s Guild Award and a New York Press Award for his coverage of Gaza, shared the argument which he had come to after thorough and exhaustive research. The Biden Administration’s policy towards Israel’s war in Gaza was defined by harrowing mismanagement and hubris that produced a “moral and strategic disaster” in the region.
In accordance with the title of the book, Ahmed and Hashmi grounded the conversation in the concept of the “red line,” which is used to describe a strict, non-negotiable boundary regarding certain behaviors and actions. The phrase is commonly used in the realm of politics and, in the context of international law, may often be a territorial boundary or a set of political behaviors.
Historically, it has often been both; such was the case in the Bosnian War, when former President Bill Clinton’s “red line” comprised territorially the Muslim-majority “safe-havens” in Bosnia protected by U.N. forces and politically the Srebrenica genocide of July 1995.
Ahmed argued that the United States has allowed Israel to cross many red lines without repercussions, both territorially and in its conduct towards Palestinians. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that the physical borders of Israel have been largely contested and in flux since 1949. As a result of its occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and the lack of recognition from its neighbor states, Israel’s borders have been often considered de facto borders.
The “red line” that Biden set on the Rafah Crossing — the only entry into Gaza not controlled by Israel — in April 2024 was an opportunity to put limits on Israel’s attacks against Gazans, Ahmed argued. Although the U.S. threatened to limit the supply of weapons to Israel if it entered major population centers in Rafah, an Israeli airstrike that killed dozens of Palestinians a month later went unchecked. Unless Israel commenced full-scale ground operations in Rafah, the Biden administration insisted, the “red line” was not crossed.
The administration, according to Ahmed, knew the red line was being crossed despite its insistence ostensibly that Israel was respecting the boundaries it had established. Even as the U.S. had the opportunity to reign Israel in and prevent bloodshed, Ahmed stated they chose to “[muddle] the red line.”
In his book, the nature behind American foreign policy towards Israel and Palestine is extensively explored through interviews with more than 150 U.S. officials and other individuals involved with foreign policy making. To provide context for this collection of first-hand accounts, Ahmed called particular attention to the Biden administration’s claim of being the “most diverse administration in history.”
Despite this claim to diversity, Ahmed stated that most foreign policy making in regards to Israel was made by a small group of Ivy League-educated white men. Beyond Biden, the failure to hold the red line in Gaza was the result of the “hubris” of his advisors and their reluctance to accept advice from others.
Especially as a Democratic presidential administration, much of the talk was focused on why the administration’s policy towards Israel’s war on Gaza was as negligent as it was. Ahmed spoke to the connotations we have with political parties in the United States, and particularly our perception of the Democratic party as one that values international law and human rights.
Ahmed explained the hesitancy of American officials to set hard red lines for Israel based on rhetorical parallels that were made between the U.S. War on Terror and Israel’s campaign against Hamas. He said there was an ethos that Israel was defending itself from an act of terrorism, and that no reasonable response could be expected from Israel in its retaliation. The “spectre of 9/11” was raised frequently in the minds of foreign policy makers — Ahmed described that October 7 was viewed as Israel’s very own 9/11.
This, combined with lack of accountability in U.S. foreign policy, rendered the red line a mere disposable tool of diplomacy and protection of international law. Ahmed spoke of the abandonment of international structures — including actual experts on the Middle East, NGO specialists, etc. — for ignorant policy making that did not adequately understand the region. He also spoke to the “idealistic” part of American foreign policy, which depends on “written assurances” from allied powers that military aid will not be used in ways that violate international humanitarian law.
Ultimately, Ahmed said, the United States has the responsibility to prevent criminal actions on the international stage, not to aid and abet them. And, through gross negligence in foreign policy, the Biden administration has permitted patterns of violence that make each new bloodbath easier to normalize.
Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27 contributed fact-checking.
