Hamas declared victory on Sunday after Israel withdrew its ground troops from southern Gaza, partially in honor of President Joe Biden’s call for an “immediate ceasefire.” Israel is currently on the precipice of a failed war.
Israelis are understandably wondering how this happened.
The accidental killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers has led some Israelis to question whether they should have stepped up to help Gaza sooner.
In fact, the problem is that Israel has gone beyond its legal obligation not to target civilians (as Hamas does both in Gaza and Israel) to accept responsibility for the welfare of Palestinian civilians in the first place.
In a conventional war, each side is responsible for its own civilian population. The side that can no longer protect its people loses and surrenders. Certainly, the aggressor, like the Palestinians in this case, has no right to demand special treatment.
In Gaza, the rules have been reversed, with anti-Israel activists and left-wing “progressives” pushing the false idea that Israel is an occupying power. (Israel withdrew its soldiers and civilians in 2005, and Hamas seized power in a 2007 coup).
The Biden administration, facing protests from Arab and Muslim-American voters in Michigan and a revolt by its own “progressive” staff, pressured Israel to take responsibility for supporting Gaza residents early in the war. I started.
Israel accepted that responsibility in return for continued US support at both diplomatic and military levels. A border crossing in Gaza was opened to assist the trucks, over the objections of some of the families of the Israeli hostages.
As Israel continues to advance, the Biden administration faces increasing pressure from Democratic bases. The White House has begun talking about a Palestinian state as a result of the war, as part of a broader Saudi-Israeli peace effort.
The idea of a Palestinian state had been an obsession of the Biden administration since before the war, and it reportedly supported the Saudi-Israeli deal. do not have This includes the Palestinians (who are not a priority for Saudi Arabia).
For Israel, which had just attacked the Palestinian territories after the war, a Palestinian state did not exist from the beginning. But for Biden, it offered a way to appease his critics and make gains on foreign policy.
It was then that pre-war tensions between Biden and Netanyahu resurfaced in public. Prime Minister Netanyahu correctly pointed out that he is not the problem. The majority of Israelis also oppose a Palestinian state.
The White House tried to slow Israel’s war effort, in part out of concern for Palestinian civilians, but if Israel won too quickly, the United States There was also concern that the power to force acceptance would be lost.
In effect, Biden began supporting Hamas in order to force Israel to accept his vision for the Middle East. The White House warned Israel not to enter Khan Yunis, the main city in southern Gaza, where Hamas leaders were concentrated.
Israel entered Khan Yunis in defiance of Biden, surprising both the US and Hamas. That led to rapid advances on the ground, and as Hamas leaders fled to Rafah, Israeli forces discovered recently abandoned tunnels filled with cash.
By early February, Rafah, a strategic point on the Egyptian border, had become Hamas’ last stronghold. Biden sought to preserve Hamas as an influence over Israel while once again expressing concern for his civilian population.
Israel once again defied Biden, launching a daring raid and rescuing two Israeli hostages from Rafah.
It was then that reports began appearing in Israeli media that the United States was delaying supplies of arms and ammunition.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his case to the American people, telling American television that the operation in Rafah would end the war in “weeks,” not “months.”
Israel had its own reasons for being cautious. He wanted to preserve the possibility of an agreement to release the remaining 130 or so Israeli hostages that Hamas had moved to Rafah to protect his country’s leader. But Netanyahu had hoped that U.S. influence would facilitate the hostage trade while maintaining military pressure on Hamas.
Instead, Biden began publicly warning that Israel would lose American support if it moved into Rafah. In March, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, one of Russia’s original disinformation mongers, convened Israeli aides for a meeting.
As the Americans forced Israel to postpone, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza became more serious and received more attention, at least in the international media. A battle that was supposed to end in a few weeks lasted for months.
Faced with growing domestic pressure and desperate to protect its plan for a Palestinian state, the Biden administration called for a ceasefire resolution at the United Nations, but ultimately dropped its claims linking the ceasefire to the hostage deal.
This allowed Hamas to retreat from the compromise and return to insisting on a full ceasefire before more hostages were released. The United States also continued to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers, further isolating Israel.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, began to step up attacks on northern Israel. Israel cannot risk losing arms supplies from the United States if it has to face a war with Hezbollah, which is even more dangerous than Hamas.
So even before the WCK disaster, Israel was in a difficult, if not impossible, position. Mr. Biden, who was once the former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, was placed there. Said — Every foreign policy issue in his life was wrong.
Before the war, Biden had already put Israel at risk, first by restoring hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Palestine that Trump had cut, including to the terrorism-linked United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA).
Hamas went to war in 2021 after four years of silence under the Trump administration. After Netanyahu won the 2022 election, Biden shunned him and supported protests against Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, fueling divisions within Israel.
Biden still hopes to reach a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel. He may succeed, but Israel will have to accept a Palestinian state and the threat of terrorism. And while the possibility of a nuclear Iran still exists, Biden has done nothing about it.
At this point, Israel has three options.
The first is that Biden could push forward with Rafah in the hopes that he won’t carry out his threats.
The second is that Biden could change the administration in hopes of being friendly to someone not named Netanyahu.
3: Israel can wait until after the American elections in hopes that Trump will replace Biden. Otherwise, Biden will no longer be constrained by the fears of pro-Hamas voters and will finally help Israel win, as he should have done from the beginning.
Joel B. Pollack is a senior editor at Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday Sunday nights from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM ET (4:00 PM to 7:00 PM PT) on Sirius XM Patriot. He is the author of a recently published e-book.The Zionist conspiracy (and how to join it)‘ is now available on Audible. He is also the author of an e-book. Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 US Presidential Election. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter @joelpolak.
