Dem
51
GOP
49
As we noted earlier this week, the moment that Hamas launched its attack on Israel, Republican politicians reflexively began pointing the finger at Joe Biden. It started with the wannabe presidents, and spread to the members of Congress. We were rather skeptical that the administration's agreement to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian money in exchange for hostages was somehow connected to Hamas. Our exact characterization: "Most of the Republican presidential 'candidates' are making the argument that Joe Biden is somehow responsible for what happened in Israel because Iran-money-Hamas-hand waving-Let's Go Brandon. In other words, it's not a particularly compelling argument, or one supported by the evidence."
That said, this is rather far removed from our areas of expertise. So, when we saw yesterday that The Bulwark had an item headlined "Blood on Biden's Hands?," we were interested to see what they had to say. After all, the folks who write that site have shown themselves to be fair-minded, but they're also conservatives/libertarians who could potentially lay out the argument against the administration without indulging in silly partisan rhetoric.
As it turns out, however, the Bulwark staff (Bulwarkers? Bulwarkians? Bulwarkettes?) sees things pretty much as we do. The subhead of that piece (which you don't see until you click through the link on the main page) is "The sick, twisted attempt to blame the killings in Israel on the U.S. president." In the body, the site's Cathy Young observes:
The $6 billion, transferred to a restricted Qatari bank account, reportedly hasn't been accessed by Iran yet and is available only for humanitarian programs. The argument linking it to the Hamas attacks is that money is fungible, and the $6 billion potentially disbursed to Iran frees up other funds for financing terrorism and specifically for Hamas. An obvious problem with this linkage, however, is that the planning for the massive, elaborately coordinated attack—which, at least according to some early accounts in the press, Iran did help plot—certainly began long before August when the deal was made. One might as well claim that Hamas was emboldened to attack because its leaders saw the clownish antics of U.S. House Republicans when they ousted Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last week and concluded that American power was a joke.
Some fair points there, not the least of which is that if you attribute Hamas' boldness to their having perceived American weakness, it's entirely possible that comes from what's going on in the House as opposed to what's going on in the White House.
In fact, and on that point, there IS a pretty good argument for pointing a finger at the president. Well, at the former president, at least. Consider the argument of a piece from The Daily Beast headlined "Trump's Overrated Peace Plan Helped Enable the Horrors in Israel and Gaza":
No American president caused Hamas' surprise assault across the Gaza border that killed over 900 Israelis—mostly in deliberate, brutal attacks on civilians, including 260 at a music festival—and kidnapping about 150 more. But U.S. policy, especially the Trump administration's, contributed to the unsustainable situation that made an outbreak of violence more likely.
Claims that "Trump brought peace to the Middle East" are almost an inversion of reality.
He shifted U.S. policy fully in Israel's favor—reducing support for the Palestinians and treating their quest for statehood as something that could be ignored—and shaped the regional context by heightening confrontation with Iran without strategic benefit.
We are well aware that The Daily Beast has a pronounced leftward lean. However, this particular piece is very well written, and is backed with substantial evidence. Author Nicholas Grossman, who teaches international relations at the University of Illinois, clearly knows his stuff. We also think the very first observation, namely that it's wrongheaded to blame any particular president, is the most important one. We'll add that it's a form of hubris for Americans to assume that their policy is somehow the main driver for the latest flare-up of violence in a conflict that dates back generations (and, really, centuries).
To return to the Bulwark piece, Young also writes:
But to declare the president of the United States an accomplice to terrorism with "blood on his hands" before the blood in Israel is dry—in fact, while it's still being shed—is nothing short of obscene. In times of crisis, one could expect partisan rhetoric to be toned down...
That, of course, is not how the current iteration of the Republican Party plays things. In addition to all the finger-pointing at Biden, there's also been plenty of performative stuff, as GOP politicians try to grab some headlines. To take one example, Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) made a spectacle of himself when White House staffers gave Congress a briefing on Israel, including shouting, stomping and profanity. To take a second example, Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) is in Israel right now, because... well, that's not entirely clear. But he did make a point of getting on Fox to complain:
The Biden administration again, weakness invites aggression and Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, they're preying upon this weakness in the White House, this weakness in this administration, their priorities on wokeness as opposed to freedoms and safeties of Americans. And I can tell you right now as an elected official, I'm not going to stand for it. And if I had to come over here and do Biden's job, so be it.
Mills is specifically involved in helping evacuate American citizens from Israel. We can hardly claim to know the facts on the ground over in that part of the world, but it is simply not believable that the White House is not doing everything in its power to find and extricate every American that it can. Even if you believe that the Biden administration is governed entirely by its own self-interest, the optics of the situation still demand an all-hands-on-deck approach.
There is not, as far as we can see or discover, an equivalent finger-pointing response on the Democratic side. If you really squint hard, you might consider talk of connecting Ukraine aid with Israel aid to be politicizing the situation, we suppose. But even then, it's not an attempt to turn the suffering of innocent people into a cudgel to be wielded against one's political opponents. And in general, the Democrats—from Biden on down—are clearly focused on trying to respond to the situation in Israel as efficaciously as is possible. The political gamesmanship can wait until later.
As the GOP plays the finger-pointing game, however, they're also playing with fire. It is improbable that anyone, other than the Fox crowd, will remember Iran-money-Hamas-hand waving-Let's Go Brandon when Election Day rolls around next year. However, if the Republicans can't pull together, elect a Speaker, and approve funding to help Israel, some people just might remember that.
There's also one other problem on the political front for Republicans. Donald Trump undoubtedly senses that he might get some of the blame here, or at very least that his signature foreign policy achievement is going up in smoke. And so, he's gone on the attack. Biden's in the Trump crosshairs, of course, but so is... Benjamin Netanyahu. In an appearance on Fox, Trump slammed the Israeli PM for being "unprepared." And in a speech in Florida yesterday, Trump appeared to make fun of Israel for getting caught unprepared, attacked Netanyahu for not helping with the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, and, in reference to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, said it was not smart to "listen to this jerk." We don't think such rhetoric is a winner, politically.
At the same time that Trump is slurring Netanyahu, and Trump's fellow Republicans are aiming their fire at Biden, the Israeli leader is actually serving as a model of how to respond to crises like this, forming a unity government where decision-making power will rest with the PM, his rival Benny Gantz, and Gallant. Again, this is way far away from our area of expertise, and we certainly have no basis for judging the extent to which Netanyahu is motivated by patriotism and civic spirit versus the extent to which he is motivated by self-interest. But whatever his reasons, Netanyahu is doing what needs to be done, and, according to people more expert than we are, may be able to keep the war from widening further.
It would be nice if the U.S. government could follow in the footsteps of the Israelis, and pull together, at least for now. But that's not likely to happen. We know which faction we think is the obstacle to that; we'll see if the voting public reaches the same conclusion and, if so, if they act on it during the next election season.
And there you have 1,500 words on an incredibly touchy subject that is miles outside our comfort zone. As a reminder, comments and criticisms go here. (Z)