210 - Biden's Winning Hand in Israel: Redirecting an Agenda of Vengeance

Safeguarding Civilian Lives

            President Biden landed in Israel today to take on an immense challenge: How to help Israel, and therefore all of us at home in the United States, successfully to accomplish revenge and effective prevention together with a responsible regard limiting human suffering on the other side. Biden must help Israel win two simultaneous wars: a military one on the ground and an information war soaring well beyond Jerusalem, Washington, and the Arab Middle East. And he must also extract hostages skillfully.

            As the editor of the New Yorker wrote yesterday, “Statecraft is precisely what is needed now to avoid even greater catastrophe—and even greater catastrophe is sure to follow heedless decisions born of rage.”  Biden could not have gone to Israel to deliver a less important and less decisive message. 

            The fact that Israel has bombarded northern Gaza and hit some parts of southern Gaza from the air does not belie the fact that it has so far wisely held off from sending soldiers into Gaza to go house to house. Such a ground invasion promises to embroil Israel in a painful slog costing immense casualties on both sides, even if Israel can doubtless ultimately overpower Hamas’ resistance. Hamas has the advantage inside Gaza City of knowing the details of a closely packed urban terrain, with hidden tunnels, endless boobytraps, and an ability to ambush Israelis fighting in unaccustomed surroundings.

            President Biden’s military advisors have doubtless urged him to caution Israel against seeking relentless revenge (an otherwise worthy goal) without regard for a significant sparing of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. Those are somewhat contrary goals, but the overriding objective of Israel’s offensive must be preventive – to make it impossible ever again for the militants of Hamas to be in a position to assault Israelis.  And to accomplish that prime objective Israel needs both the support of the free world and the backing of those who would otherwise viscerally condemn Israel for killing indiscriminately. 

            With the Abraham Accords – still works in progress – Israel had the de facto acknowledgement of Arab monarchies, and at least some of the Arab street.  If its retaliation against murderous Hamas is as equally vicious as Hamas’ underhand killings and abductions, it will appear callous and unprincipled and immediately forfeit Arab acquiescence and the possibility of truly forging alliances with its one-time implacable enemies.

            Staying its own ability to be brutal may also enable negotiators to extract hostages unharmed, a critical goal that very much needs skillful advocacy.

            Biden is presumably carrying all of those messages, and more. Earlier he made sure that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu understood that Washington wanted Jerusalem to follow “the rules of war.”  (The UN has already criticized Israel for forcibly transferring civilians southwards in Gaza and for bombing civilian areas.  If Tuesday night’s devastating attack on a major hospital, with much loss of life, proves to be the result of an Israeli bomb rather than a defective Palestine Islamic Jihad missile, winning the information war will be much more contested.)

            Biden may also seek sensibly to extract a public pledge from Netanyahu that he will resign as prime minister after gaining the release of hostages and decapitating the senior leadership of Hamas. Then he can leave politics on a high note after palpably lowering Israel’s guard and its readiness by attacking the country’s supreme court and its judges, by offending non-extreme-orthodox Israelis, by aligning himself with internal zealots, and by reducing Palestinian rights and expectations of fairness in the West Bank. Netanyahu presided over social and economic turmoil; by agreeing to leave office after winning a war against Hamas he could strengthen Israel’s fighting unity, keep Arab nations from taking Hamas’ side, and help Israel win the information war.  Biden’s long “friendship” with Netanyahu may assist Washington’s effort to make sure that the battle against Hamas proves winnable across a number of these significant dimensions.

            Biden travelled to Jerusalem in order to help Netanyahu fully appreciate what he must do and how Israel can emerge victorious, not only over Hamas, but in the crucial struggle for hearts and minds everywhere. But Biden also wants to show Putin that the United States remains a world power not worth ignoring or messing with. President Xi Jinping may notice, also. Rushing two aircraft carrier task forces and a marine battalion to waters just outside Israel demonstrates Washington’s aim, and its ability, to strike back against any Iranian-promoted attacks on northern Israel by Hezbollah from Lebanon.  A two-front combat is more than anyone needs at this point.

            By travelling the long road to Jerusalem, Biden also shows those Jordanian right-wing Republicans in Washington’s increasingly dysfunctional Congress that he still has abundant vigor.  The hope must be that his ability to speak truth to power in Israel will be noticed by those nattering nabobs of negativism who think 80 is old when Biden’s 80 is wise. He wants to be seen to be twisting arms diplomatically while, as President Theodore Roosevelt once said, speaking softly and carrying a big and immensely effective stick of power.

            This is Biden’s moment to help the Israelis help themselves.  Hamas’s unspeakable outrages can be transformed into a “win win” by humane, but forceful and well-considered responses on the ground, in the air, and over social media.

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