Here's a question for you. Suppose Joe Biden had a change of heart and decided it was essential to broker a ceasefire in Gaza. What could he do?
Is there any pressure he could bring to bear on Bibi Netanyahu to force him to stop fighting? Be creative, but be realistic too and stay within legal bounds. We aren't going to lob a nuke at Jerusalem or ban Israel from the international banking system. And of course, keep in mind that the war is supported by about two-thirds of the Israeli population.
After you're done with that, do the same thing for the other side. What pressure could Biden put on Hamas to stop fighting and release its Israeli hostages?
My take on both these questions is: nothing. Tell me why I'm wrong.
He could stop sending weapons and ammo to Israel. Actually, he could have done that a long time ago.
And what do you think the result of that would be?
Israel would reach out to Russia for ammo, they'd do a swap of goods, consequently the US-Israel relationship would sour.
Republican institutionalists would light up the airwaves with nonstop criticism of the bad strategic move as proof of Biden's cognitive decline. Fox News would direct all programming to focus on Biden's foreign policy blunders, from Afghanistan to Ukraine, to Israel.
It wouldn't matter what the truth was, but this is the narrative they would push. Biden's numbers would plummet. Certain liberals would panic and cite his failing numbers as proof that he should have walked away from the primaries.
Trump miraculously wins in November, pardons himself, directs his DoJ to arrest the insurrectionists who peacefully protest his inauguration.
Or something along those lines.
And through all this, pundits will flood the comment boards with shock that countries like Russia and Israel would have transactional foreign policies.
I was reading your comment and thinking that I probably wrote that. You are correct from top to bottom (IMHO).
My only addition: right wing media would go full blast on how Biden is the most anti-semitic president ever and reinstating the Holocaust, and the NYTimes would have a series of think pieces on that topic.
If he had don what gs suggests “a long time ago” Biden would be blamed for 10/7.
Just so you're clear, when I wrote "a long time ago" I meant "sometime after 10/7 but surely well before the present."
I doubt that Israel could just switch over to Russian arms overnight. As I recall, Ukraine couldn't mount US bombs initially on Russia-supplied planes, for instance.
I do think it is hard to imagine Biden risking the blowback from punishing Israel during an election year, however.
A lot of this is likely true. But Russia is an arms buyer right now, not an arms purveyor, so it isn't clear where Israel would be getting its ammo from. India, maybe?
If we're talking missiles, especially guided ones, sure. Drones? Definitely, Russia can't supply these things to Israel.
But Russia's got lots of dumb bombs. And when Israel runs out of guided munitions, they'll fall back on dumb bombs.
You know how the death toll appears to have declined over time? What if a big part of that is attributable to the US supplying guided munitions, specifically to stop Israel from using dumb bombs as they did early on?
It would be highly ironic if the US cut off supplies of precision guided munitions.
Impeachment for violating the impoundment control act, since this sis the same thing Trump did with funds for Ukraine.
If Trump had held up Ukraine aid for policy reasons, he wouldn’t have been impeached. It was using that lever to solicit a personal benefit that made it a case of solicitation of a bribe.
I recall unilaterally withholding congressionally approved military aid being an impeachable offense. I even give it a decent chance that there would be enough Democratic votes in the Senate to remove him from office.
So then what?
Umm..the Biden administration has actually bypassed legally required congressional approvals twice to support Bibi's genocidal war. The current congress is refusing to authorize more funding.
Hamas murdered Americans and is holding Americans hostage. Why should we pull their cojones out of the fire?
What about putting pressure on Qatar to expell Hamas's political leadership, minus their bank accounts?
When they leave Qatar there may be an opportunity to capture or kill them. Then we either have bargaining chips that are much more valuable to Hamas than the lives of any number of ordinary Palestinians or an object lesson to Hamas's new leadership of the cost of holding civilian Americans and Israelis hostage.
Why was Netanyahu supporting Hamas in Qatar before October 7th ?
Israel murdered a US citizen because she was reporting on their actions in the West Bank. Were you equally outraged because of the citizenship issue? Or are you hiding a concern for Israelis that you don't have for Palestinians on this nationalism?
Yeah, most of the posters here are not too fussed about the way an IDF sniper shot Shireen Abu Akleh - a U.S. citizen, as you point out - in the back of the head in broad daylight with "PRESS" written all over her vest and helmet. That was 2 years ago, so well before the events of the last few months, but you have to wonder if this'd perhaps anger a Palestinian or two.
In other news, the IDF used American ammo to kill more than 100 Gazans (and injure 700) who were standing next to an aid truck. Nothin' like a turkey shoot.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4497061-100-killed-gaza-israel-forces-open-fire/
You're a well-known troll. Why should anyone bother to reply to a POS like you?
The Israel government is morally corrupt. What they are doing to Gaza is not excusable. The actions may or may not help the current Israeli government achieve its short-term goals, but that's irrelevant to the morality question. Intentionally starving children is evil. Destroying hospitals filled with the sick and injured is evil.
As for the less-important question of whether this actually makes Israel safer - of course it doesn't. It does the exact opposite. It (very unfortunately) puts a new target on Israel that will take decades (if they are lucky) to fade.
Israel is completely screwed now, in every way. And every day they continue this violence it gets worse.
If you really want to continue your line of arguing, I'll ask you - how many lives would be enough? Do you believe that if Hamas doesn't "surrender" (whatever that would mean in your mind), then Israel would be justified in killing half a million Gazans? A million? Is there a limit?
//And of course, keep in mind that the war is supported by about two-thirds of the Israeli population.//
who cares that two-thirds of Israelis support the war? what about the two-thirds of the Democratic Party voters who are against the war?
Pretty much this. I don't think Biden (or the US) can stop the fighting in Gaza. But why on earth are we aiding it?!
We should cut off arms and any aid other than humanitarian at this point. On both sides. We should stop vetoing UN resolutions critical of Israel. This won't end the fighting, but will end our participation in it, and that's enough for me.
If Biden needs Congress to cut off any military aid, he should publicly call on them to do this. It's not a hard case to make.
Simply not stepping up in the UN to defend Israel would be cheap, quick, and easy. It would literally take no effort at all.
By all means let's help Trump. Nothing will be better for the Palestinians then another Trump administration. That's some three dimensional thinking right there.
Who are you again? Besides somebody who thinks speaking in flat declarations is more convincing than, you know, logic, reasoning, etc.
We should have stopped sending offensive weapons. No reasonable person should object to sending antimissile systems and interceptors.
"Nothing" is the correct answer. However Kevin asked a politically irrelevant question.
The relevant question is "What should the president be doing to demonstrate his solidarity with Israel/dissatisfaction with what the IDF is doing in Gaza?" The answers are (a) posting lots of tweets about 'never again!' and (b) posting lots of tweets with gory pictures of dead Palestinian children.
Another vote for "nothing," though I think the administration needs to better explain its position and the great efforts it's undertaking behind the scenes (though they then wouldn't be "behind the scenes" anymore so this is limited).
The complication is that Bibi would prefer the reelection of Trump so knows his lack of restraint in Gaza helps peel away support for Biden.
For Israel, we might a) end visa-free travel, b) stop sharing intelligence, c) start voting against it in the UN. Perhaps we could divulge a couple of embarrassing, dirty secrets with the implicit threat to move on to more substantial information.
For Hamas, I suppose we need to hurt Iran.
I admit that I have no confidence in any of these ideas.
Isreal would run out of ammunition within a matter of weeks if the US stopped sending it. International pressure would very likely force Isreal to agree to a ceasefire if the US did not veto security council resolutions calling for it. Frankly, "what can Biden do?" is a strangely naive question.
Israel would run out of ammunition within a matter of weeks if the US stopped sending it
This seems exaggerated. Israel itself has a sizeable domestic armaments industry. And what it can't get domestically it could buy: many countries (I reckon most that have reached middle income levels) are home to munitions makers, and Israel's GDP is in the $500 billion range...which, yes, means America's annual aid check nets out to less than 1% of Israel's GDP: how's that for maximum US stupidity? We get all the blowback of having our fingerprints all over Israeli human rights abuses AND Israel itself doesn't even really need the money! It's nuts.
Oh I agree there’s nothing Biden could do that would halt the fighting. But he needs to stop appearing to be so one sided in his support. The word “appearing “ carrying quite a load there. (Not balancing Israel and Hamas but balancing Israel and the Palestinian people.) He needs to make an effort, even if it fails. It’s too late for him to take no stand.
But he needs to stop appearing to be so one sided in his support.
He doesn't "need" to do so, and probably will not do so, given US polling on the Israel-Hamas conflct. Palestinians are practically subhuman in the eyes of (most of) the US public. That's the bitter reality.
Celebrating after 9/11 didn’t help.
+1
You and Donald saw that with your own eyes, didn't you?
Trump lied and said he saw it in New Jersey which didn’t happen. There were celebrations in the West Bank and that was widely reported and documented.
So, here's where I'm deeply cynical (and I think you're hoping someone makes this very point) about this part of politics and the world in general.
It's not that Biden has to do something or anything to actually stop the fighting in Gaza. It's that, instead of his equanimous consideration of balancing two competing interests and the feverish back room shuttle diplomacy to try to resolve the whole Israel-Palestine problem, he hasn't provided the desired and expected performative outrage over the blood-filled streets, stained red by the deaths of thousands of of Arabs and Muslims, and he hasn't gone through the motions of slapping the wrists of Bibi in public, to show that he really cares.
Had he done all that theatric work, his critics would then have something to point to, to say, "look, he's on our side and he's trying."
Instead, they're critical of his apparent lack of concern about the deaths of human beings (I mean, we are right to ignore the deaths of the tens of thousands of Syrians who were killed with chemical weapons, right?). And I've been repeatedly told that there is no solution that will work to bring peace to this region, especially not the 2-state solution.
But whateves. Y'all smarter than me.
Public, embarrassing and classified information dumps, one way or the other. Like the real nasty stuff that would paint, depending on which way you frame it, one side categorically evil without room for argument or sympathy. Take all the air out of one side's rationale and show what monsters they are...oh wait.
I like this approach. And the US has a lot of diplomatic and commercial relationships with Arab nations, always hampered by US support for Israel's barbarous treatment of its Arab citizens and Palestinian refugees. It's not as if the US can't signal to Israel using its diplomatic corps that going too far comes at a cost. So far, for Netanyahu and his cronies, there has been no cost.
That siad, the political realities in the US tie the hands of ANY administration. that's why I think executive actions would have to be masked, not open.
The pre-10/7 situation was unacceptable to many. Israel had another in a long series of governments hostile to Palestinians. Wealthy Arab states and business interests were making their peace with the economic realities of the region. Hamas had to have known the response to an attack would upend this situation and create new opportunities to pressure Israelis. The Israeli response may have exceeded their expectations with regard to the number of casualties and property damage, but apparently the more vicious response serves their interests too! It has generated widespread sympathy and these sympathetic folks don't think much about the victims from 10/7.
I'm guessing that those who take a longer strategic view see the possible benefit of the violence in the long run, though I think they have miscalculated. Maybe they have made life in Israel inhospitable to secular Jews who leave (or don't come at all) and maybe Israel remains radicalized for many more years.
Ultimately there is little anyone outside the region can do. Biden revealed his bias toward a economically well developed and basically tolerant* western oriented society over a pre-modern violent society run by barbarians and religious fanatics. (Go figure.) Frankly, I'm amused by the pro-Hamas crowd in the USA. They've revealed themselves too. I'll never again think of that crowd as "liberal" in any meaningful sense. None of them look attractive to me.
* recognizing, of course, that the ultra-crazy Jewish religious fanatics are as awful as Hamas. That's the problem for Israel. Secular Jews have tolerated Jewish barbarians for far too long.
So really, no one is happy about it and there is no solution. Biden expresses his bias for Israel and others express their bias for Hamas. I'm not picking sides. When your enemies are killing each other, it's best to stay out of the way.
How often do the ultra-crazy Jewish religious fanatics kidnap Palestinian babies and hold them hostage?
I guess we could look in Israeli prisons and see. Otherwise I’m not your boy for picking sides. My barbarism detector is probably more sensitive than yours. I’m happy to say eff off to every one of them. From the most radical to the peaceful among Palestinians, Israelis, and their various sympathizers, none of you are worth defending. You made your own hell. Good luck.
Another vote for Biden realistically can do nothing that would end it.
The US is just going to have to wait to see how it resolves on the ground. Until then, we will just have to take our lumps as the world associates the US with scenes of bombing, and leftists and Moslems naively vilify us for it.
But sometime this will be over and we can mostly go back to our normal discussions. Because this is not only destructive on so many levels but exhausting.
Until then, we will just have to take our lumps as the world associates the US with scenes of bombing, and leftists and Moslems naively vilify us for it.
You didn't know world opinion is heavily against Israel?
Send food and medical aid. Roll it through the Egyptian border. Let Israel own the shame of rejecting it as more and more countries follow the lead of the USA.
Heck, just air drop packages. Let idiots argue how powdered milk and water are being weaponised by Hamas.
It’s never been done, must credit me!
"My take on both these questions is: nothing. Tell me why I'm wrong."
You're wrong. Here's why.
Once again, nothing can be understood outside the context of intent. What is Biden's intent? From my perspective, he understands that we live in one inescapably interdependent global social system and he's trying to resolve a within-system dilemma. That means he has everyone's interest in mind. That doesn't guarantee success, but it does is make success possible.
What if his intent was to get through this mess and still get reelected? That would guarantee failure.
Oleg Penkovsky to Greville Wynne: "We are only two people … but that is how things change."
That's from The Courier, a 2020 film about two people who, when they asked themselves what can be done, answered "something" in lieu of "nothing" and in all likelihood made preventing WWIII possible.
Beware of self-fulfilling prophecies. If I act based on the assumption that I won't catch a fish, then I won't fish, and then I won't catch a fish.
"we live in one inescapably interdependent global social system and he's trying to resolve a within-system dilemma. That means he has everyone's interest in mind. That doesn't guarantee success, but it does is make success possible."
I'm not following this logic. Why does that mean success is possible?
Thank you for asking. I say this with respect, but it's true that this is elementary school logic.
One way to answer is a sports analogy. There's no guarantee that an "all for one and one for all" team will win, but there is a guarantee that the team full of "all for one as long as the one is me" players will lose.
There's no guarantee that Ukraine's "all for one and one for all" efforts will succeed, but there is a guarantee that Putin's "all for me" philosophy will destroy his Russia. The only question is who does he take down with him.
If Biden is efforts are in the interest of the greater good, he has a chance, but he does have to get the "all for me" players to pay attention long enough to see that they are not acting in their own self-interest. That's the tricky part.
it’s neat how your answer is always to negate other people’s problems. it’s almost like you’re an old rich white man who already got his and is very comfortable with the state of the world. like you want to conserve that state. a conservative, one might say.
You didn't reply to my comment, but I'll assume you're referring to me.
In my defense, I'm not old. Old is when you decide you already know everything. I'm not rich, you got the white right, and I am anything but comfortable with the state of the world.
I am not a conservative. I want the world to be radically different, but I've been around long enough to know that a change is not necessarily an improvement, and I want the change to be an improvement. That requires understanding, and to understand you have to decide that you don't already know everything.
Vote for UN censure, bar Israel from using US weapons in Gaza or stop sending them, call for UN peacekeepers on the ground, stop talking to Netanyahu and talk to the opposition like Netanyahu did to Obama.
Israel's economy requires global trade/integration into the global economy. The US plays a key role is protecting Israel from global protest, UN resolutions, arms embargo etc. The robust Israeli economy is consequential for both domestic and international Israeli politics.
IF Israel faced a creditable and SERIOUS risk of the US shifting policy around the aforementioned, I suspect Netanyahu would change course in Gaza. Note, even if Biden made serious threats, Bibi might ignore Biden and just play for a Trump victory in the next election....
He could pressure the gulf states where Hamas and other Palestinian leaders lead a plush existence to arrest and extradite them, or at least expel them.
If those guys had to live in Gaza they'd have a different perspective.
Or, if the US navy pitched in on the Israeli side, even if only to the extent of openly supporting them against Hezbollah rocket positions, they'd probably surrender immediately because that would really seem like too much.
What would get Israel to change direction? An invasion, or voting out Netanyahu.
CLD on December 9th: "The Palestinians are filth". FOAD, you POS.
That is your only thought, the only thought you can ever have.
You know nothing else and you can say nothing else, haven't before, won't in the future.
The fact that you've said that even once disqualifies you from a place at the table.
I'm not the guy who made a side hustle out of citing non-existent urban legends as facts in the most belligerent face plant ever, let's recall.
Chuckle. I don't know what you're talking about with this latest gibberish, but you just contradicted yourself; whatever happened to That is your only thought, the only thought you can ever have. Your hattred has made you deranged. But to get back to our muttons ...
CLD on December 9th: "The Palestinians are filth". I think I can safely say that most everyone here is repulsed by your conduct and don't much like you as a person. God knows I don't.
The thing to remember is that America's support for Israel is a matter of our domestic politics rather than any moral position or any international strategy. George C. Marshall allegedly told Harry Truman that he wouldn't vote for him in the next Presidential Election if he recognized Israel, and the State Department -- which has since been largely purged of "Arabists" -- pretty consistently advised against taking Israel's side against the Arab World.
And now, reading between the lines, it looks like China is happily working on assuming the pro-Arab stance that we neglected.
Absent American support, and that of the many countries that align with us, Israel is really a pariah state. Germany supports it out of guilt, but that sentiment is fading, and the UK seems to have gotten over the distaste it acquired for Zionism after the Palestinian Mandate period.
But would there be enough support for Israel that it could maintain its adversarial relationship with the Palestinians and its neighbors absent American sponsorship? I doubt it.
The level of military spending needed by any sponsor in order to keep Israel technologically ahead of its potential goes is huge. It basically requires a superpower intent on military dominance and willing to share its weaponry with Israel. Maybe if all the EU decided it needed to be a dominant military power, it could do it; maybe China could do it, but other than that, it's America or nothing. No one would maintain a military industrial complex of the level Israel needs based significantly on supplying Israel.
Israel is a country the size of a large city. If America seriously threatens to abandon them, they will toe whatever line we tell them to toe.
But again, our support is a matter of our domestic politics, and that seems secure for at least another generation.
So far, jet aircraft have been supplied to Israel by the U.S., but there are many other producers, certainly there are others who would be happy to sell to the IDF. Israel produces its own tanks and armored vehicles, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, antitank weapons, and more. A small country can support a sizable arms industry with enough foreign sales.
+1
Israel DOES support a sizable arms industry.
But in the end it is a country the size of a large city. Even with full American support, Hezbollah beat it to a standoff. And now Hamas' attack -- which was closer to a bandit assault than to a full military attack -- has taken a big chunk out of the Israeli economy.
The American military industry is committed to staying on the cutting edge of technology. Only China even potentially approaches our level of that commitment. And it's really too expensive for anyone else, unless they really realign their economies.
Israel from its very beginning has relied upon a technological advantage over its adversaries. When that slips even a little bit -- as in the 1973 War -- Israel is in trouble.
And a lot of Israel's domestic arms industry -- particularly research -- has been bankrolled by America. They may produce tanks, but to seriously have a heavy vehicle military industry, shouldn't you have an automotive industry to layer it upon -- ?
How many cars does Israel produce annually?
He could excerpt considerable pressure on Netanyahu threatening to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state based on the 67 borders heck threatening to drop the 82nd into the West Bank to liberate it. But the only pressure he can put on hamas is via basically threatening war on Iran and have them place the pressure. Instead what he should do is strongly condemn Israeli violations of the rules of war and demand that individual soldiers commanders and politicians be held responsible. That doesn’t mean that Israel should stop its war but the only way for them to regain the moral high ground is to surrender war criminals for prosecution.
According to Duncan at Atrios, there is a magic button in Biden's office. He only needs to push it and all this ends immediately. Or at least that seems to be what he thinks.
Somehow Hamas has achieved the unthinkable: a complete & total pass for what they did on October 7. Why? Because the American political press always always always follows Murc's Law.
"According to Brendan Nyhan, the Dartmouth political scientist who coined the term, the Green Lantern Theory of the Presidency is "the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics." In other words, the American president is functionally all-powerful, and whenever he can't get something done, it's because he's not trying hard enough, or not trying smart enough."
https://www.vox.com/2014/5/20/5732208/the-green-lantern-theory-of-the-presidency-explained#:~:text=According%20to%20Brendan%20Nyhan%2C%20the,the%20American%20president%20is%20functionally
Not sure that "what the president can (or can't) do about something" matters all that much in the presidential race. It's like all the local politicians around me sending me mailers at the moment telling me they're going to protect abortion rights... um, that's not a city council issue, last I checked...
Somewhat similarly, if you basically feel the system is "rigged" and Biden seems to be fully on the side of Israel killing 30 Palestinians for every Israeli killed back in October, what you may care about is that Biden not be seen to be actively on the side of the mass killing... even if he "couldn't do anything about it".
In the end, there are two paths to a permanent peace. Either Israeli Jews leave and apologize profusely on the way out, or they pay enough money to justly satisfy legitimate Palestinian claims. Unfortunately the latter has a price tag in the trillions and is growing by billions per day.
He could issue an executive order to move cat blogging up by day this week.
I don't know if laws allow it, but give all the Gazaians permission to immigrate to the US. Provide free transportation and aid in settling here.
I think this is the only policy that would persuade Israel to stop their war.
I guess it would be too big a nut to swallow to do the same for the West Bank.
Netanyahu is well versed in American politics. He is very aware of what Biden can't do, like threatening to drop the 82nd Airborne as mentioned earlier.
So all the BS about Biden taking stands that he can't back up since the House won't let him are moot.
The only thing that Biden could do is offer Bibi a full presidential party, agree not to extradite him back to Israel or freeze his assets. This is, of course, political suicide.
The choice to retreat to the realpolitik bunker rather than engage in the kabuki virtue battle seems defining…
President Obama unilaterally declared Venezuela a national security threat which initiated sanctions against the Bolivarian Republic. Biden should do the same to Israel in order to stop all deliveries of munitions as well as economic subsides to this ethnic nationalist state.
Hamas, on the other hand needs US support. The thousands of Palestinian hostages Israel imprisons should become Biden's priority rather than the colonizers Hamas has arrested for occupying Palestine. Americans in the IDF should be treated like the Americans who joined ISIS. Americans with dual citizenship should be treated as national security threats.
1. Block all shipments of military materiel to Israel. Immediately.
2. Recognize the Independent State of Palestine, with the 1967 borders. Immediately. All those Israeli squatters in the territories are illegals.
3. Bring back the "cease fire" resolution in the UN Security Council and vote FOR it.
For Hamas. Literally nothing. We all know this. the question is based on a false equivalence. He could perhaps try to pressure the Qaratais or Egypt, but we all know the US is not talking directly to Hamas.
For Isreal, the bombs killing women and children in gaza are US bombs. So maybe start there. also, more sanctions over settler violence and stealing of land in the west bank, violence that has been escalating for months now
There are limits to what the US can make Israel do, but you undervalue the role that the US refusing to criticize Israel for morally disgusting behavior has. It allows Israel to delude itself into thinking its behavior is not morally disgusting, and that all of its critics are just anti-Semites.
Israelis are convinced that they are doing nothing wrong in the slaughter of Palestinians, because Biden there are no consequences to their doing so. Had Biden begun months ago by supporting Israel's right to self-defense but making clear that there are limits to what that self-defense can include, and making clear that there would be consequences to going to far, it likely would have made a difference to public opinion in Israel. Instead the US tacitly supported war crimes, and a complete disregard for human lives if those lives happened to be Palestinian and in Gaza.
Throughout the Netanyahu era Israel has been pushing the envelop to see what disgusting things they can get away with. Using sharpshooters on peaceful protesters, murdering journalists, bombing hospitals based on questionable evidence, not to mention a cruel blockade reducing millions to subsistence levels of calories for more than a decade while pushing Palestinians in the West Bank into ghettos, and moving to pograms to empty some of the more isolated Palestinian villages. None of this has received more than a tsk from the US.
Israelis overwhelmingly support what the Israelis are doing, even though it doesn't appear anyone in the Israeli military establishment thinks this is actually about defeating Hamas anymore, because the evidence they get is that it is righteous. The US is still protecting it from the anti-Semites and their media is protecting them from the consequences of their actions. Why would they think otherwise. That public opinion would shift if they realized their actions were making them a pariah nation. I don't know how much or how quickly.
But it is silly to think that the US arming Israel and protecting it in international forums does not have an effect on Israelis view of what is happening.
Yes, to all of that.
This whole mess is ultimately a failure of the international community and it has not servered Isreal's long term interests at all. People and nations with great power but near total impunity inevitably descend into abusive behaviours and reprehensible attitudes. We have done Isreal no favours by allowing them a free pass over and over for whatever action they think suits their immediate interests.
Isreal is Dereck Chauvin crushing the life out of George Floyd utterly indifferent to the horrified onlookers. I only hope that finally they have gone too far and enough people will see reality for what it is.
"Had Biden begun months ago by supporting Israel's right to self-defense but making clear that there are limits to what that self-defense can include, and making clear that there would be consequences to going to far, it likely would have made a difference to public opinion in Israel."
I'm with you on a lot of what you're saying, but you may recall that when Biden went to Israel in October he made a big point of saying, in public, that they can't just act out of vengeance, they need to have a plan for what the region should look like after they've done what they need to do. IOW, "Bibi, you can't just go in and kill people and break shit up, you have to be setting up a modus vivendi that comes after." Which is probably a little closer to what he said in private.
He took a lot of heat for that here in the US, and the Israeli public in general, as far as I can recall, was shocked and offended to see him saying anything that sounded remotely like a caution. People I know here were upset about it too, but I was happy he did.
But I can't go along with the idea that we have ways to shift Israeli public opinion. Basically, I don't think they care at all what official or unofficial Americans think about the Gaza operation. They want it and don't care what anyone else anywhere in the world thinks about it. Bibi is the one responsible for the specific form it's taking, and that's strictly on him.
The West Bank has been a different and separate matter up to now; world opinion has been against them, the Israeli government sheltered and encouraged the settlers in their wilding expeditions, and at least half the Israeli public opposed the murderous nuts. Now, after October 7, quite a bit of that opposition seems to have lessened. Which would be another Hamas goal achieved.
Even if he can't end it, that doesn't mean we should pay for it.