Dem
51
GOP
49
On Monday, as part of our item arguing that Israel is losing the PR war, we wrote this:
That said, Biden has shown a willingness to change course when he feels he has no choice. He's sometimes slow to do it, but he certainly has the capacity. And the day may soon come that playing patty-cake with [Benjamin] Netanyahu is a luxury that Biden can no longer afford. That doesn't necessarily mean a total severing of the relationship, but it could mean using a few sticks here and there. Indeed, as we noted yesterday, the White House halted a shipment of armaments to Israel last week; it's still not known why. On top of that, Biden will be making a speech today in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day (albeit a day late), and he'll be reporting to Congress on Wednesday as to whether or not Israel is using U.S. weapons in accordance with international law, and whether or not humanitarian aid is being delivered properly. Needless to say, the world will be watching both days for insight as to Biden's current thinking.
We do not repeat this to highlight how brilliant we are—after all, that is self-evident—but to point out that the course events have taken was entirely foreseeable.
Indeed, as most readers will have heard by now, Biden finally drew a line in the sand on Wednesday. Speaking to CNN, he said: "I made it clear that if [the Israeli Defense Forces] go into Rafah—they haven't gone in Rafah yet—if they go into Rafah, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities—that deal with that problem."
Although that quote seems to be in future tense, the White House, in fact, has already paused a second weapons shipment to Israel. This time, a bunch of big bombs are being held back (1,800 2,000-pound bombs plus 1,700 500-pound bombs, for a grand total of 4,450,000 pounds of bombs). These are the primary bombs that Israel uses for offensive operations, so holding them back is a pretty big deal.
The basic point of contention is that Rafah is Hamas' most important remaining stronghold, by a large margin, and the Israelis think and hope that they can break the back of the terrorist group with an invasion. However, Rafah is also home to 1.4 million people, plus some hundreds of thousands of refugees, and the Israeli government has not presented a satisfactory plan for how it will evacuate or protect those folks. Needless to say, dropping hundreds of tons of bombs, some of them with a blast perimeter of a quarter of a mile, would be rather hazardous to the civilians' health.
Netanyahu is pissed off, of course. So are the various strongly pro-Israel Democrats, and pretty much all Republicans. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sent a letter to the President demanding answers. The basic position taken by all of these folks, to a greater or lesser extent, is that withholding the bombs weakens Israel's position militarily, and in turn weakens them at the bargaining table. All of that is undoubtedly true.
However, when fighting a war (or helping some other nation to fight a war), it's often not about "the good choice" and "the bad choice," it's about the least bad choice from among a bunch of bad choices. If the Israeli government is going to rely on the U.S. for weapons and other support, then that gives the U.S. government a seat at the table when it comes to determining how that assistance is utilized. And it is abundantly evident that, from both a humanitarian and a political perspective, the Biden administration has no real choice but to assert itself more fully. Most Americans are OK with it if American bombs are used to kill terrorists. Most Americans are NOT OK with it if American bombs end up killing lots of civilians. And if the Israelis cannot give reasonable assurances that it will be the former and not the latter, then they can't be certain of support from the U.S. government. It is worth noting, incidentally, that the Biden administration is still supplying smaller and more precise offensive weaponry, as well as defensive weaponry. Just not the big bombs, until a better and clearer plan of action is in place.
As to what happens next, nobody can possibly say. Netanyahu is posturing, and declaring that if he can't get bombs from the U.S., the Israelis will go it alone. That seems a dubious threat, to say the least. Maybe this will prove to just be a blip in the relationship between the Netanyahu administration and the Biden administration, and they'll get back on the same page in short order, with Biden having made a statement, and Netanyahu deciding he needs to course-correct, at least a bit.
On the other hand, Biden has broken with his usual policy of "nice guy Joe" and conducting diplomacy behind the scenes, and has now publicly criticized his Israeli counterpart. Once that Rubicon is crossed, maybe it can't be un-crossed. At least some experts think the breach cannot be repaired, and that we're getting closer and closer to regime change in Israel. The next week or two should be interesting. (Z)