Dem
51
GOP
49
A week after threatening to withhold arms from Israel, the White House announced yesterday that it has begun the "lengthy process" needed to move forward with $1 billion in weapons sales to that nation.
Here is the most Biden-friendly interpretation of this: He is cutting House Republicans and their "you have to send bombs to Israel bill" off at the knees, without actually doing what they want. The $1 billion in goodies would include some materiel that could be used for offense—$700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds—but not the big bombs that are most likely to end up killing civilians. Further, nobody seems to have a clear idea of how lengthy a "lengthy process" is. Weeks? Months? Years? Could be an example of the sort of malicious compliance we hypothesized yesterday.
And now, here is the least Biden-friendly interpretation of this: He is flip-flopping around depending on how the political winds blow, withholding arms one week, providing them the next. Certainly, many Democrats are worried that the administration's strategy on Israel is not "cohesive," to use their word.
Our guess, to use a metaphor we deployed last week, is that Biden hit Benjamin Netanyahu with a stick last week, and now the president is dangling a potential carrot. And the ball is now in the PM's court, and his actions will determine whether, and how quickly, he gets that carrot. (Z)