Biden’s carrot and stick

In one of the most stupid, self-defeating and confusing attempts to control a loyal ally, President Biden has made a truly epic mistake. By threatening Israel with non-delivery of munitions and offering to give information on the whereabouts of Yahya Sinwar, Head of Hamas in Gaza, in order to try to persuade Israel to forgo the invasion of Rafah, President Biden has made a monumental mistake in foreign policy.

There are several levels of this error:

1. You don’t publicly threaten and cajole a sovereign ally in the middle of a war. It will only create a negative reaction.
2. Any action against an ally will only be interpreted by the enemy, in this case Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, that you are not committed to the defense of your ally.
3. All commentators have said that Biden’s remarks and actions have negatively affected the chances of a hostage exchange deal.

As to the merits of the case, it seems obvious that Israel must attack the remaining stronghold of Hamas in Gaza in order to render it militarily incapable of repeating another attack as it did on Oct 7, 2023, in which they murdered 1,200 Israelis and took 252 hostages. The excuse for the Biden Administration is that there are 1.5 million Palestinian civilians in Rafah, as a result of the previous war in northern Gaza. But what alternative have Biden and his advisors proposed. They have said that there are better alternatives, but none have been revealed. In fact as of now, the IDF’s actions in Rafah have been limited in scope to the Rafah crossing and eastern Rafah, and so far it is estimated that ca. 1.3 million civilians have moved to designated safe areas. This process can and will continue. So what are the true reasons for this change in policy?

There seem to be three reasons, first and foremost is the need for Biden to appeal to the “progressive” wing of his party in the upcoming election. Many pro-Hamas extremists are calling him “genocide Joe,” a clearly fatuous propaganda slogan, since there is NO genocide by Israel of Palestinians in Gaza as found by the International Court of Justice (they found that S. Africa had a plausible reason to bring its case, NOT that there is a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide as has wrongly been reported in the liberal pro-Palestinian press!) Yes, some civilians are killed, but in proportion many fewer than in most wars carried out by the US. So this is a move to show his left-wing that Biden’s not really that committed to Israel. Only it also shows Hamas and other enemies the same thing!

Second, is his supposedly truly humanitarian concern, but this is hollow, since it is Egypt that has stopped sending aid thru the Rafah crossing, due to Israel taking control of the Gaza side, and it is Hamas that caused the closing of the Kerem Shalom crossing due to two Hamas shelling attacks on it, that killed 4 IDF soldiers. Even the m$65 jetty that the US is constructing on the Gaza coast was mortared by Hamas, and the US had to ask Israel for military protection. At US request Israel has opened a new improved Erez crossing point further north so that aid supplies can keep flowing. It is not Israel that is limiting humanitarian supplies.

Thirdly is Biden’s perceived attempt to rescue Hamas from final defeat in order to try to arrange a fictitious “two-state solution” to the Israel-Arab conflict. He supposes that if the Palestinians get a state they will give up their obsession to destroy Israel, In this belief he is naieve and mistaken, they have had numerous chances to have a state side-by-side with Israel and they have not taken them. Their aim is not a state per se, but the destruction of the only Jewish State. In this they will be defeated, for them a permanent Nakba.