Dem
51
GOP
49
"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," Harry S. Truman said. Well, after announcing his intention to halt a shipment of bombs to Israel, Joe Biden took plenty of heat yesterday.
Among the criticisms of Biden, there is one that potentially has merit. That criticism is that Biden has been a little vague about exactly where the line is between "unacceptable Israeli action in Rafah" and "acceptable Israeli action in Rafah." Reasonable people can disagree as to whether or not the President should be clearer.
That said, it is abundantly clear that Biden tried six ways to Sunday to get Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to change course, and that Netanyahu was having none of it. So, Biden went public. At the same time, he's keeping things a little flexible, and keeping his options semi-open, in the hopes that diplomacy can eventually produce dividends. This is a pretty common gambit in times of war.
Meanwhile, there are criticisms, coming overwhelmingly from Republicans, that are very hard to take seriously. The most common line of attack is that Biden has betrayed Israel, that it's not America's place to tell other countries how to run their wars, and that the nations of the world can no longer trust the U.S. Here's Senate chameleon Lindsey Graham (R-SC), for example:
Saudi Arabia is watching. Would you as a nation sign a defense agreement with the United States knowing what we have just done to Israel? Is signing on the dotted line with the United States on a mutual defense agreement equivalent with outsourcing your national security to the United States? That is the message you're sending. Israel is being asked to turn the war fighting over to the United States. "Let us plan how to do this, not you." That is a huge mistake.
Number one, I trust Israel more than I trust [Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin. He still said Afghanistan withdrawal was a good idea. Bottom line, there's a lot at stake here. I think the region and the world is going to second-guess future relationships with us, Mr. President, if you don't change your mind.
Please. If other countries want to fight their wars backed by American guns and money, they give the U.S. a seat at the table. Maybe the U.S. doesn't exercise that privilege, but it has every right to do so. Do we really imagine that the U.S. government was not influencing how the ROK Army conducted business in the Korean War? Or the SVA/ARVN in the Vietnam War? The Contras in Nicaragua? The Mujahideen in Afghanistan? The Baathists in Iraq?
Even more outlandish is the claim being peddled by (mostly) right-wing commentators, that Joe Biden's pause on weapons shipments to Israel is no different than Donald Trump's attempt to extort Ukraine, leading to Trump impeachment #1. Scott Jennings was on CNN yesterday to make this argument, asserting that both actions were "political." Maybe that is broadly true, but Biden was implementing national policy in the manner he presumably deems best for the United States. That it might benefit him politically is only one dimension of the decision, and our guess is that it's not the main one. In any case, this kind of decision-making is a part of being president.
On the other hand, Trump was not trying to implement national policy, and there is no possibility he was concerned about what is best for the United States. He was using resources appropriated by Congress in an effort to extort personal favors from Volodymyr Zelenskyy. There is a bright-red line between Biden's behavior and Trump's behavior, and it is hard to believe that anyone can claim otherwise with a straight face. It's definitely a reminder that you should never, ever take anything that Jennings says seriously.
A third line of attack came from many on the right, most notably Donald Trump (makes sense, because this is his very favorite when it comes to Israel). Speaking to reporters as he entered court for his criminal trial, Trump said: "If any Jewish person voted for Joe Biden, they should be ashamed of themselves." Of course, the great majority of American Jews will not be voting for Trump, and insulting them does not help on that front, so this is presumably signaling for the benefit of his evangelical Christian base.
Meanwhile, several members of Congress, nearly all of them Republican, are trying to move a bill that would force Biden to send arms to Israel whether he wants to or not. Good luck with that. Even if the bill passes, Biden's not going to sign it. Even if a veto is overridden, Biden is going to do what he wants to do, and dare Congress to sue him.
In any case, the cards are very clearly on the table. If Democrats are running the show in 2025, there is at least some possibility that the Palestinian people will be considered in policy-making. If the Republicans are running the show, it's a blank check for the Israeli government. (Z)