The announcement by an Israeli government official on Wednesday that the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip will involve “another seven months of combat” is bad news for Joe Biden. But it didn’t have to be.
The Biden administration did not have to bend to “pressure from members of Congress and the progressive wing of his party” and, as early as in January, project dissatisfaction with the way Israel was defending itself against a demonstrably genocidal terrorist organization. It did not have to castigate Israel for overseeing the disbursement of humanitarian aid in Gaza in ways that failed to meet the White House’s subjective criteria for acceptability. It didn’t have to highlight every Israeli misfire on the battlefield or withdraw the diplomatic cover it provides Israel at the United Nations. It didn’t have to establish contradictory conditions on the final assault on Rafah designed to delay that operation when Israel still had momentum on its side. It did all this and more of its own accord.
The cumulative effect of these actions was to betray the extent to which a prolonged war in Gaza threatened Biden’s political position and to prolong Israel’s war. Even now, if the administration managed to put on a brave face and stand unreservedly with Israel in its just campaign, it might not shorten the war’s duration (though it couldn’t lengthen it). But it would dampen the sense among the president’s anti-Israel critics that their agitation is bearing fruit and should continue. The Biden White House created the perverse incentives to which his tormentors on the left are merely responding.
Just four in ten Americans say the United States is doing “too much” to support Israel’s cause. If placing himself on the side of the majority of Americans — who either support this administration’s material assistance to Israel or believe it hasn’t gone far enough — is a liability for this president, it’s because Biden labored diligently to make it into one.