The New York Times’ lengthy article about the ongoing tension between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden illustrated that our president is ahead of his skis and supremely confident in his foreign policy credentials, for which he has none. It comes as the Biden administration has decided to curtail military aid to the Jewish state in protest of their operation in Rafah, the last remaining Hamas stronghold in Gaza.
Reportedly, Biden threatened to pull US support for Israel two months ago but kept it hidden to avoid a “public blowup.” It’s a detailed history of Biden thinking he could influence Israel from behind the scenes. It also showed that despite his mental decline, the president, for a time, showed ironclad support for Israel, ignoring the pro-Hamas aides that infest this administration. The errant World Central Kitchen strike changed the equation. However, the notion that this insipid and weak man could influence anything while being dead wrong on every major American foreign policy venture for the past 40 years is hilarious. Biden is a textbook case of how experience doesn’t mean anything if you’re always wrong. One of the primary reasons why Biden was trying to get Israel to hold off was to avoid our mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. This war isn’t the same thing, Joe (via NYT):
Biden privately threatened to rethink his support for the war in a private call with Netanyahu in February, two months before doing so publicly, but the White House didn't put it into the readout of the call to try to avoid a public blowup. https://t.co/zPytMW5glq
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) May 11, 2024
President Biden laid it out for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel long before letting the public know. In a conversation bristling with tension on Feb. 11, the president warned the prime minister against a major assault on the Gaza city of Rafah — and suggested that continued U.S. support would depend on how Israel proceeded.
It was an extraordinary moment. For the first time, the president who had so strongly backed Israel’s war against Hamas was essentially threatening to change course. The White House, however, kept the threat secret, making no mention of it in the official statement it released about the call. And indeed, the private warning, perhaps too subtle, fell on deaf ears.
[…]
Interviews with administration officials, members of Congress, Middle East analysts and others, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, indicate that the president’s decision came not as a sudden break but as the inexorable result of months of efforts to influence Israel’s behavior.
[…]
Even as he voiced his own visceral outrage over the atrocities of Oct. 7, Mr. Biden soon faced pressure from within his own party to restrain Israel’s ferocious retaliation. Mr. Biden’s theory was always that he would have more influence speaking privately as Israel’s friend than by pushing its leaders publicly. While much of the criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war has focused on Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Biden recognized that the war has widespread support across Israel’s political spectrum, including from the prime minister’s opponents.
Joe thinks he as political powers—he doesn’t. He never did. He’s always been seen as a bumbling fool, cantankerous, and now someone who carries with him an aura of accomplishment that never existed. It’s not a political achievement to be elected from blue Delaware. The office of the presidency is powerful, but it’s all about the man behind the desk.Joe Biden has failed every test. And when he doesn’t get his way, he opts to shred one of our most crucial allies in the Middle East. Unable to sway Israel on Rafah, he tried to cut off bomb shipments without letting anyone know:
With no agreement, the president was forced to decide whether to allow a pending shipment of bombs that could be used in the attack. This time he said no. His advisers notified the Israelis, but did not tell the public or Congress, which had just passed $15 billion in new military aid for Israel. The idea was to make the point privately to Mr. Netanyahu without a public blowup. But the Israelis leaked the news, at which point Mr. Biden went public on CNN with his vow not to provide any weapons that could be used in a major Rafah operation.
He didn’t tell Congress and thought the Israelis would keep this unprecedented departure in policy secret—not a chance. Also, what was he thinking in assuming a move like this would fly under the radar unless he wanted it to be leaked to pitch to the antisemitic and pro-Hamas cohorts within the Democratic Party that he’s pressuring Netanyahu in a fool’s errand to keep Michigan in the win column.
There are more American Jews who care more about Israel than Muslim voters who love Hamas—that’s a warning that a Democratic Party megadonor sent this week.
And let’s not forget that Biden sent the CIA director to Egypt to cobble together one last ceasefire push without telling the Israelis the details, which was then offered to Hamas, who jumped the gun and agreed to it for obvious reasons: they knew Israel would reject their outrageous demands, once again fanning the flames of the fake narrative that it’s Israel being unreasonable, not this genocidal terror group. Everything Biden has done has either failed or been so shoddy that highlighting the incompetence doesn’t do it justice.
Israel has offered ceasefire agreements continuously for months; Hamas has rejected all of them. Hamas is the only party that could end the war today.