President Joe Biden apparently hopes Americans won't detect the air of hypocrisy that is certain to waft through his entire trip this week to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Biden faces the difficult task of upholding long-cherished Democratic Party principles regarding the defense of human rights while avoiding any public mention of them as he glad-hands with leaders of two notorious rights-abusing nations.

Biden will have to thread a particularly difficult needle on his first stop, in Israel, as he tries to square a policy he inherited from the Trump administration recognizing Israeli sovereignty over land its military seized by force in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Golan Heights.

Then-President Donald Trump overturned decades of U.S. policy, honored by Republican as well as Democratic administrations, by recognizing Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem and moving the U.S. Embassy there. He declared that Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank are no longer regarded as a violation of international law. And he formally recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The United States has long upheld U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning the seizure of territory in war and has gone to war repeatedly to force occupiers out of territory they seized, including the Iraqi seizure of Kuwait in 1990.

That's the basis for Biden to justify sending billions of dollars in military aid to help Ukraine fend off Russia's ongoing invasion. But by upholding Trump's policies regarding Israel, he sends a tacit greenlight to Russian President Vladimir Putin to carry on.

In Saudi Arabia, Biden plans face-to-face talks with Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, the kingdom's de facto ruler. The United States has long tolerated Saudi Arabia's egregious human rights record, particularly its oppression of women. But Biden has insisted he would not allow the Saudis to sidestep responsibility for the murder and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist and contributor to The Washington Post. U.S. intelligence agencies say the crown prince played a direct role in the killing and coverup.

In a 1,400-word Washington Post op-ed on Saturday, Biden devoted two entire sentences to the Khashoggi case. He steadfastly avoided mentioning the crown prince's name in reference to Saudi harassment of dissidents and the "76 visa bans" Biden's administration has issued against known human rights abusers. That's a far cry from his insistence in 2019 he would make Saudi Arabia "pay the price, and make them, in fact, the pariah that they are" over Khashoggi's killing.

The problem is that midterm elections are coming in which support for Israel and the price of oil are certain to factor heavily. For a president who claims to stand on bedrock principles, Biden risks looking a lot like his predecessor — someone with no principles at all.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Photo credit: 652234 at Pixabay