Joe Biden’s position on Gaza is “even more unpopular among young Americans than these others presidents including [Richard] Nixon and Vietnam. And so he has to be concerned about his legacy,” Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, told Al Jazeera.

Biden is likely concerned about whether he is “going to still be president by this time next year” due to his handling of Israel’s incursion in Gaza, according to Zunes.

Zunes said that while he believes Biden is still unwilling to “publicly threaten Netanyahu”, he believes he will be “quietly” making threats.

“Giving Netanyahu essentially everything he wants in the hopes that he will see reason is simply not working. He has to exercise at least some of the enormous leverage the United States actually has,” he said.