Leaving Gaza and Israel alone in dealing with Hamas lead to the catastrophe we have now. Believable outside actors are necessary to bring this to as good an end as is still possible using diplomacy. ISIS was beat down with violence - I think that is something that Israel is capable of without the help of an international coalition.
The Biden team has pretty clearly demonstrated that they see being able to influence Israel from their side as more valuable in terms of what they can do to limit Israel’s destruction of Gaza than what they can do by joining the international condemnations.
And to a certain extent they might be right? So far Biden’s been able to negotiate hostage swaps and autonomy for a hypothetical post war Gaza, and sanctioning settlers is definitely a step in the right direction compared to past presidents, although I’d have gone as far as dragging American participants back to be prosecuted and imprisoned for that shit but whatcha gonna do?
But the long and short remains, Blinken may be hand tied on what he’s allowed to press Israel on, and on how much he can question the official strategy from the whitehouse.
The Biden team has pretty clearly demonstrated that they see being able to influence Israel from their side as more valuable in terms of what they can do to limit Israel’s destruction of Gaza than what they can do by joining the international condemnations.
this has basically been the american position since, basically… always.
it doesn’t work. No president has ever had enough of a spine to actually pull that trigger.
It sure stopped the Suez Crisis, last I checked Egypt still controls both sides of the canal, and that was this policy put into direct action.
Believe it or not choosing to not blow up a decades long alliance and show the world that your reliability as a diplomatic partner sways election to election does actually work sometimes.
It’s a bit inaccurate to say that it worked in the Suez Crisis.
yes, Eisenhower cut (or tried to cut) private aid to Israel (about 100 million annually at the time,) But he also sought (via UN,) sanctions that were vetoed by France and Britain, both of whom were also in on the invasion.
Also, Eisenhower put inordinate pressure on the UK, rejecting an IMF request (because they needed oil, and were loosing money,); while also threatening to dump UK bonds held by the US. (which would have had deleterious effects on their economy… though those effects were grossly overstated by Macmillan. Further pressure was laid out by the Saudi embargo on both Britain and France- and the US refused to help alleviate that.
regardless, my point stands that simply being “good friends” with Israel doesn’t really give you the ability to hold them back. particularly when they don’t believe you’d actually do it. The Suez Crisis was resolved at least as much by pressure on Britain and France as it was on Israel- because they were desperate for oil.
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