The most relevant fact about the Biden administration’s current position on the war against Gaza is this: There is no Israeli war crime too extreme for Joe Biden to consider pausing, to say nothing of cutting off, the flow of U.S. weapons and financial support for Israel’s war of annihilation. On Tuesday, the Senate passed an extraordinary $14 billion in additional military aid for Israel to continue its occupation and bombing of the Palestinians of Gaza. Biden remains defiant in rejecting global demands for an immediate cessation of Israel’s military assault on a starving, overwhelmingly defenseless population. Not only has Biden flatly rejected suggestions that he use the threat of halting military sales to Israel, his administration is currently preparing a new shipment of powerful munitions to Tel Aviv.
A recent U.S. intelligence estimate indicated that Israel’s current weapons stockpiles only enables it to wage war against Gaza for an additional 19 weeks, unless Washington sends more ammunition. The fact that Biden has outright refused to use his leverage as Israel’s arms dealer is a stark indication that the occasional public platitudes, offered by U.S. officials and numerous media leaks about Biden’s mounting frustration with Netanyahu, are little more than a re-election campaign ploy.
The reason Gaza has become a domestic electoral problem for Biden is because of activism, especially from Palestinian Americans. The White House seems to believe it can still salvage the Arab American vote and desperately hopes the specter of another Donald Trump term will tilt the balance in Biden’s favor regardless of his atrocious role in an ongoing genocide. Whatever happens in the November election, it should never be forgotten that it was Biden, not those Americans who oppose Israel’s war and the U.S. facilitation of it, that bolstered Trump’s chances. That is entirely on Biden and the Democratic Party establishment.
A recent U.S. intelligence estimate indicated that Israel’s current weapons stockpiles only enables it to wage war against Gaza for an additional 19 weeks
For all the people who claimed that israel doesn’t need the US for their Genocide, this is a pretty important indication that the bombs used to kill Palestinians aren’t being summoned out of thin air.
If Biden actually cared he would use these weapons as leverage to demand a two state solution.
Anyone who actually cares needs to know the two state solution isn’t real. It’s a red herring.
There’s only a one state solution: a multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy, from the river to the sea.
Was high school civics so difficult? Congress allocates, the President administrates. The President can’t set conditions on Foreign Aid either. Otherwise, Trump wouldn’t have been impeached for asking Ukraine for a favor before they got weapons that congress already allocated.
Do you need to mock people you disagree with?
Also: bully pulpit. Biden sets the Party agenda.
Bernie Sanders tried to condition Isreal aid in the Senate. It failed. Again, Congress allocates.
Biden leads the Party, not Bernie.
Biden isn’t a Senator any longer, Bernie is. Biden can not force his will on Congress. If he could, he would have had a much easier three years. He said he would consider a condition on Israeli aid. Bernie tried and got very few votes. Allocation is still pending in the House.
Frankly, the Intercept is full of hit pieces on Biden. Makes people angry and wanting to click more. But, their basis of fact is questionable
Biden leads the Party. Biden sets the Party’s agenda. The Party overrode Bernie’s conditional aid amendment because Biden would just go around them to provide aid to Israel if they tried to limit it in any way, and so instead of create intra-Party conflict they just obeyed the edicts of the Party leader. Bernie is just a Senator. The President leads the Party.
It’s like you don’t believe politics exists and it’s all just bureaucratic formalism.
The President does not control the Senate. You can imagine what you’d like, but that is a fact.
The President controls his Party. This is also a fact. If you honestly think that the Senate would have passed a veto proof majority for Israel if Biden opposed funding the genocide you’re a clown.
Regardless of one’s position on the conflict, there isn’t a realistic way that Israel is going to lose a conflict with Hamas, or to be unable to conduct its operations, whether-or-not it gets aid from the US. Aid just isn’t a decisive input in the conflict.
If there were other countries involved, then maybe American support would matter, but no other countries appear to be looking for a war.
No other countries are looking for war with a country that has unlimited US support.
Would it only be Lebanon and Yemen if the US pulled support for Israel?
He’s gonna lose us the election with this horribleness, and then we are all trebly fucked.
Yup, and instead of blaming Biden for being a bad president, liberals will blame voters for not voting for genocide.
I’m so confused by this argument when Trump just said he’d abandon NATO allies.
Do you honestly think Trump would do anything differently with Israel? And we know he’d abandon Ukraine to Russia.
I honestly think Democrats would meaningfully oppose Trump, as opposed to Biden who they have lined up behind to support Israel’s genocide.
Is your stance then that Republican presidents don’t support Israel?
No, because I’m not fucking stupid.
My stance is that Democrats oppose Republicans, and so if Trump were the one supporting this genocide Democrats would oppose him.
He’s not even a terrible president, and would be even better if he wasn’t constantly thwarted by conservatives. But he is dead wrong on this, and somehow does not see the consequences of the optics he is creating.
His team truly believes that Democrats will vote blue-no-matter-who and that they don’t need to appeal to their base at all, because Trump is running. Instead it seems that Biden is focusing on appealing to the right to siphon Republicans away from Trump.
For the Democratic base, this is a lose/lose situation. If Biden wins he will have proven that appealing to the base is entirely unnecessary and will use this as a reason to shift even farther to the right. If Biden loses then Trump wins. We’re so fucked.
Democrats already proved this when Hillary was running.
Hillary lost. They proved blue-no-matter-who doesn’t work and refused to learn from this mistake.