Biden Pushes for Ceasefire in Gaza
Blinken says we will change our aid if Israel doesn't comply
Just hours after Hamas rejected yet another Israeli attempt to forge a ceasefire, President Biden signaled a change in US Policy toward Israel. Days after saying that nothing would change in how this administration supports Israel, Biden essentially told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel must agree to a ceasefire or else. According to the White House Statement about the phone call between the two leaders, Biden “made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers. He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps.”
According to Ryan Saavedra, in doing this, Biden “effectively blames Israel for Hamas not releasing the hostages ...”
Also, at this afternoon’s press conference, John Kirby was asked to clarify President Biden’s statements from the earlier phone call. Kirby’s answer made it clear that Humanitarian aid for the Hamas-supporting people of Gaza is now more important than the release of any hostages, including the Americans still being held by Hamas.
Add to Biden’s phone call, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Brussels and told reporters that US support “would be curtailed if Israel doesn't make significant adjustments to how it's carrying out the war.”
This dramatic shift in US policy is in response to the accidental bombing of a World Central Kitchen operating in Gaza by Israel. According to the Times of Israel, IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi apologized for the incident last Tuesday, saying, “It was a mistake that followed a misidentification, at night, during a war, in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened,” and that there was no “intention of harming WCK aid workers.”
General William T. Sherman said it best: “War is hell.” Collateral damage is bound to happen, especially in a place where the enemy loves to hide behind or burrow under its civilian population. Israel is well-known for dropping leaflets ahead of bombing campaigns to warn the civilian populations to leave. Simply google the phrase, “Israel drops leaflets before bombing,” and you will find a myriad of examples.
Maybe this dramatic shift in policy toward Israel has something to do with the number of Pro-Hamas people within the Biden Administration. Or maybe it has something to do with the recent Ramadan meeting Biden, Kamala, and other top administration officials had with Muslim leaders last Tuesday. Regardless, it is interesting that the same President who is so concerned about the Muslim lives in Gaza made not a single mention of the Muslim lives snuffed out in China when he was talking to Chinese President Xi.
Make no mistake. Israel has the absolute right to defend itself. After the inhumane, barbaric atrocities of October 7, the fact that there is even a single building still standing in Gaza is a testament to Israel’s restraint. The idea that our current administration wants to rein in Israel and scold them for what amounts to collateral damage in a war zone is just sickening. Israel has been trying to negotiate for peace, and Hamas keeps turning them down. Negotiations should be a two-way street, not “my way or the highway,” and yet that is the strategy Hamas is employing.
There is a saying, first said by the late Golda Meir, then paraphrased by Netanyahu, that is absolutely true: “If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.”
I’m reminded of when my parents would talk to me and my sisters about getting into fights at school. My father would always tell my sisters and me not to fight, to walk away, resolve things with words. And then my mother would lean in and tell us, “But if someone starts something with you, you better finish it.” This war was started by Hamas. Israel must finish it.
I leave you with this quote from the late, great Golda Meir: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
Lorraine Yuriar is a wife, mother, and lifelong conservative, currently stuck in a very blue state.
JRB and his "administration" are bound and determined in cutting our ties with Israel and getting us and many nations in a third World War, aren't they?!
Excellent write up LY ! If there is to be peace, Hamas cannot exist.