Biden set to deliver State of the Union address without a cease-fire deal to tout

President Joe Biden’s upcoming State of the Union address was already a high-stakes setting to discuss his handling of the Israel-Hamas war, with pressure mounting from fellow Democrats for a major change of course.

But as prospects for a temporary cease-fire took a major hit on Thursday, it seemed all but certain that the president would deliver the speech without the component he and his team desperately wanted: a diplomatic achievement to tout.

Biden acknowledged that a detente between the two sides was now in serious danger after Palestinian authorities said Israel had opened fire on a food truck convoy in Gaza City, killing dozens. While Biden said he remained hopeful for a deal, he conceded one would not likely come within the optimistic time frame he’d set earlier this week, when he had mused that a breakthrough could happen over the weekend.

The setback further complicates the White House’s plans and preparations for the most watched speech the president will deliver all year. Biden has not given a major address on the Israel-Hamas war since the days following the Oct. 7 attacks that set the fighting in motion. But he will be forced to tackle the crisis when he goes before Congress on March 7. And he will do so now with a diplomatic resolution remaining painfully elusive and with evidence mounting that it’s harming him politically back home.

"The State of the Union allows you to address the issue in the context you want, and I imagine he will put Israel and Gaza as well as Russia in Ukraine in the frame of steady American leadership trying to make the world safer," said Jennifer Palmieri, former communications director for President Barack Obama. "There's no other setting the president has where he can speak for a while and link different issues together in the theme he wants."

White House aides are still drafting the address and weighing how to discuss the situation in Gaza. The speechwriters have, to date, been unable to work with specifics because the situation is so volatile.

Administration officials have been pushing aggressively for a breakthrough in the war. And they acknowledge that having a working pact before the State of the Union address would dramatically alter the contours of the speech and ease — even temporarily — the weight the war has placed on Biden. But they say the push for a detente has not been driven by speech’s timing but by the approach of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, which is expected to begin either March 10 or 11 depending on the moon, just days after the address to Congress.

“It’s not being driven by anything other than an earnest desire to get those hostages home as soon as possible,” said a senior administration official, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal thinking.

In recent weeks, the administration has leaned heavily on a recalcitrant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make a deal that would lead to a substantial, multi-week cease-fire in exchange for the release of more hostages and humanitarian relief for Palestinian civilians. And this past week, Biden, ice cream cone in hand, voiced optimism that an agreement between Israel and Hamas could be brokered by Monday.

But despite a series of backchannel discussions, officials in Israel and with Hamas both downplay the chances of an imminent deal; and privately, Biden’s aides have grown bearish.

“Of course it’s better for us to have a hostage deal as soon as possible,” said a second senior administration official. “We wanted this deal yesterday.”

The absence of a major on-the-ground breakthrough has led to calls for Biden to put even more pressure on the Israeli government. Richard Haass, the former longtime head of the Council on Foreign Relations, has urged Biden to give a major public address on the war to create distance between himself and Netanyahu. He proposed the president do so by speaking before Israel’s legislative body, the Knesset.

The White House has no plans for such a dramatic gesture. But the State of the Union address does provide the president with the largest audience to date to address the war. It also comes in the shadow of the Michigan Democratic primary, in which 130,000 people voted “uncommitted” as a form of protest for his handling of the conflict and the perception that he has aligned himself too closely with Netanyahu.

A new Harvard-Harris poll shows that only 38 percent of Americans either strongly or somewhat approve of Biden’s handling of the war, down from 44 percent in October, the month Israel retaliated for Hamas’ killing of 1,200 people in a single day.

Biden advisers counter arguments that the war has hurt him politically by pointing to internal polling that suggests the conflict does not loom large for most of the electorate. They note that he has received a boost in support from Jewish Americans and point to polls that suggest Israel still receives broad support from American voters.

But the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and staggering death toll of its residents — estimated to be more than 30,000, per Hamas-controlled ministries — have created an unrelenting series of gruesome images being displayed on Americans’ televisions, smartphones and social media feeds.

“Foreign policy doesn’t usually rank high among voter concerns,” said Basil Smikle, longtime Democratic strategist, “but as the country becomes more diverse, voters will increasingly consider how presidents engage their home nations, giving those policies more weight in their electoral choices.”

Young voters and progressives, key parts of Biden’s base, have angrily denounced the president’s support for Israel and could, Democrats fear, stay home or support a third-party candidate in November. And while Biden has privately and publicly upbraided Netanyahu for his prosecution of the war, he has not called for a permanent cease-fire or attached conditions to the military aid the U.S. has been sending to Israel.

In the days after Hamas’ attack, Biden, a longtime supporter of Israel, set aside his personal differences with Netanyahu and offered passionate support of Israel’s right to defend itself. He also blasted the spike in anti-Semitic incidents across the country. He traveled to Tel Aviv to stand in solidarity with the Israeli people and hug the Israeli premier, though he warned Netanyahu to not go overboard and repeat the mistakes the United States did after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

But Biden’s pleas have largely gone ignored.

White House officials insist they’ve been able to dull the intensity of Israel’s attack on Gaza through private back-channeling and occasional public pressure. But the president himself has given only sporadic remarks about the conflict. His increasing silence, experts say, has been driven by a recognition that the war has become politically complicated and inherently unable to shape or control.

That tension will unavoidably color Biden’s State of the Union. With a cease-fire looking increasingly far off or unlikely, Biden will likely not have enough to tout to satisfy the anger among progressives, whose support he will need this fall.

“The administration is constrained by Hamas’ violent agenda and a hard-line Israeli prime minister who is driven by his political needs,” said Guy Ziv, a professor of Israeli politics at American University in Washington, D.C. “So while we’re seeing limits to U.S. influence, it’s nevertheless vital that the U.S. continues to play a constructive role in mediating any cease-fire and, in the long-term, any Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.”