Biden’s feckless threat
President Biden threatened to stop supplying offensive weapons to Israel if it invades Rafah. Over a million Palestinians fled there after Israel invaded northern Gaza.
Both Republicans and Democrats are making much ado about this threat:
Republicans are accusing Biden of betraying Israel. They’re virtue signaling by drafting legislation in a vain attempt to force him to give Israel everything it wants.
Democrats are praising Biden for finally distancing the US from Israel’s genocidal onslaught. They say it’s the least he could do, given the inhumane way Israel is blockading humanitarian aid, putting millions of Palestinians on the brink of starvation.
Except that Israel has already made the US complicit in genocide. So Biden’s threat smacks of the getaway driver threatening to kick his co-conspirators out of the car after robbing the bank.
In any event, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly exposed the fecklessness of Biden’s threat. He vowed not only that Israel will invade Rafah on its own terms but also that it already has enough US weapons stockpiled to complete its mission.
US losing moral authority and credibility
Since October 7, the US has provided Israel with unconditional support. But that support has caused immeasurable, perhaps irreparable harm to the US’s reputation on the world stage. Not to mention the threat pro-Palestinian protests pose to Biden’s presidency.
Beyond that, consider this:
- Israel is executing the same kind of genocidal onslaught in Gaza that Russia is in Ukraine. Yet the US refused for over a year to send defensive weapons to Ukraine but didn’t hesitate to send offensive ones to Israel.
- The US championed ICC arrest warrants against the Russians. Yet it is threatening to sanction ICC prosecutors if they issue them against the Israelis.
- The US condemned Israel’s indiscriminate bombing in Gaza. Yet it is now claiming there’s no evidence Israel is committing war crimes.
What the US must do to redeem itself
You’d be hard-pressed to find two US politicians with greater moral authority to speak on this conflict than Jewish senators Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders. So when both spoke out against Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza, Biden should’ve listened.
After all, Schumer and Sanders have called not just for Biden to stop sending weapons to Israel but for Israelis to get rid of Netanyahu’s right-wing government. Instead of making feckless threats to stop sending weapons, Biden should lead that clarion call.
Netanyahu’s intent
Netanyahu has shown time and again that he couldn’t care less what Biden says. He seems hell-bent on executing his forever war, so long as he retains the support of the right-wing members of his cabinet.
Incidentally, America wasted unspeakable blood and treasure for 20 years trying in vain to destroy al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Israel can try for twice as long and still won’t destroy Hamas in Gaza. And there’s the rub: Netanyahu knows this.
But he thinks being a wartime prime minister will give him de facto immunity from prosecution on corruption charges. The deaths of thousands of Palestinian women and children and the fate of the Israeli hostages be damned.
Meanwhile, I cannot overstate that Netanyahu seems to think justice for October 7 is Israelis doing in Gaza what Russians are doing in Ukraine. Like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu doesn’t care about the death toll (of Palestinians or Israelis).
He cares even less about the antisemitic backlash. Never mind that Jews everywhere are suffering in ways eerily similar to how Jews suffered in Germany during the 1930s.
Ultimately, Biden must realize there’s no reasoning with Netanyahu. After all, this hopelessly compromised prime minister is convinced his freedom depends on executing this final solution (Nakba 2.0).
So, here’s to Biden calling for regime change in Israel. He must do so to redeem US leadership on the world stage and save his presidency.
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