Hello you're very welcome to Long Reed's a Jacoban podcast where we look in depth at political topics and thinkers.

My name's Daniel Finn and the features editor here at Jacoban and I'll be presenting the show. This is another special episode of

Long reads looking at Israel's war on Gaza. Our focus today is on the politics of the

Biden administration and it's backing for Israel.

Biden and his team are still giving their firm support to Benjamin Netanyahu

as he talks about a war lasting for many months. With a presidential election during the fall

there appear to be strong echoes of Linden Johnson and Vietnam in 1968.

Akbar Shaahid Ahmed is the senior diplomatic correspondent for the Huffington Post.

He's been following Joe Biden's policy and the dissent among US government officials.

We spoke on Tuesday, January 2nd, shortly after an Israeli bomb attack that killed a Hamas

leader in Beirut, sparking fears of a wider escalation.

Thanks a lot for joining us.

I just want to ask you to begin with, on the eve of the October 7th attack what was the general

outlook of the Biden administration towards the Middle East and towards Israel

in particular some of the issues that were in play

that was talk about normalization

between Israel and Saudi Arabia

building on the previous agreements

with other Arab states. what was the thinking of Biden and a team

around that? What was their attitude to the government formed by Neting Yahoo? And how did they

see the Middle East in a wider global context?

So it's useful to begin with two points I think to understand how the administration came in here.

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