Joe Biden has surrendered to the hard-Left
Was this the week in which the United States started to get tough on Israel? Perhaps. But it is truer to describe it as the week in which Joe Biden squinted under his eyebrows at the looming election and decided to put domestic politics first.
Americans instinctively understand what is at stake in Gaza. A study last month revealed that 80 per cent of the population supported Israel’s war against jihadism. Unlike many in Britain, they haven’t forgotten who started this fight and know there’s only one way to end it. For the last four-anda-half months, the president seemed to understand that, too. In the war’s first phase, with his deployment of aircraft carriers to the eastern Mediterranean and billions of dollars of military aid, he stood boldly in defence of democracy. But then he began to snark about “indiscriminate bombing” and Israel being “over the top”. In private, according to NBC, he took to calling Benjamin Netanyahu an “a--hole”. After that came the finger-wagging about Rafah, the final redoubt of Hamas.
Without an assault on Rafah, Hamas will not be destroyed. Without the destruction of Hamas, the two-state solution will remain a pipedream and October 7 will one day be repeated, precipitating an even greater crisis. The IDF has already dismantled 18 out of 24 Hamas battalions, a remarkable military achievement. But the Philadelphi Corridor, an eight-and-a-half mile strip along the border between Gaza and Egypt, is known for smuggling into Rafah. Without clearing the area of Hamas, the group will easily remilitarise.
Of course, Palestinian human shields must be evacuated and rescuing the Israeli hostages remains a priority, but Israel cannot rest until every Hamas battalion is gone. After October 7, the Jewish state has no alternative.
These are facts. But the battle for the White House will be bitter and Donald Trump, the presumed Republican candidate, is winning already. Voting intention data places him ahead of the incumbent. Trump also leads in every battleground state apart from Pennsylvania. Moreover, hard-Left Democrats are already nonplussed about their leader. In short, Biden appears to have concluded that the footage of wounded Palestinian civilians must vanish from TikTok.
In November, Rashida Tlaib, the representative for Michigan, abstained in a vote on Israel’s right to exist. In 2021, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wept when funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system – without which huge numbers of Israeli civilians would have been killed – was approved. Both women command a significant following. As a result, questions of right and wrong are being edged out of the spotlight.
Seen through this prism, America’s opinion on Israel is irrelevant. What matters are the sentiments of certain constituencies in swing states such as Michigan and the energy of the progressive base of the party. Biden is fighting for his political life; he is allowing that to eclipse the plight of the Israelis who, in the real world, are fighting for theirs. If Biden were stronger, he wouldn’t need to sell Israel down the river. The Arab-American community accounts for a very small proportion of the voting public in Michigan. And if the country were energised behind the president, the progressives could be ignored. But 86 per cent of Americans think he is too old for the job.
Barack Obama once cautioned: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f--- things up.” From the disastrous Afghan withdrawal to the appeasement of Iran, Biden’s foreign policy has been one of indecision and weakness. The exception to this has been his fortitude on Israel. Now even that seems poised to crack.
Domestic political concerns are pushing the US president to abandon his prior support for Israel
If the country were energised behind the president, the progressives could be ignored