You’d think that a president who had a front-row seat in the Obama administration might be a bit more careful about issuing ad hoc red lines.
You’d think that a president who had a front-row seat in the Obama administration might be a bit more careful about issuing ad hoc red lines on foreign policy that he knows will be crossed. Nevertheless, that’s exactly what President Biden has done in issuing a red line on an Israeli invasion of Rafah, which is a necessary step to defeating Hamas. In the process, he has set up a historic crisis in the United States relationship with Israel.
Biden, asked by MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart if an Israeli invasion would be a red line, said, “It is a red line, but I am never going to leave Israel. The defense of Israel is still critical. So there is no red line I am going to cut off all weapons, so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them.” He went on, “But there’s red lines that if he crosses . . .” As his thought trailed off, he then said (citing dubious Hamas casualty figures), “you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”
That Biden said he wouldn’t cut off “all weapons” and mentioned the Iron Dome system that intercepts rockets heading to Israel left open the possibility that there would be some weapons transfers he would end if Israel enters Rafah. The category of non–Iron Dome or not purely defensive weapons is large. For instance, that category could include stopping the resupply of parts that allow Israel to maintain its fleet of U.S.-made aircraft.
While Biden and his administration have tried to draw a distinction between Netanyahu and Israel in general, the reality is that when it comes to the basic goals and strategy of defeating Hamas, there is not a distinction. Specifically, a poll released over the weekend found that nearly three-quarters of Jewish Israelis, and 65 percent of Israelis overall, believe Israel should expand its military operations into Rafah, the final holdout of Hamas in southern Gaza.
The idea that the Biden administration’s issues are limited to a beef with Netanyahu for being intransigent also is undercut by the fact that Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s chief political rival, also supports a Rafah operation. And after a recent meeting with Kamala Harris, the White House pushed the narrative that the vice president dressed down Gantz over the planned offensive.
At the same time, Biden has also pressured Israel to agree to a cease-fire.
Biden is pushing for a six-week pause, with hopes to “build off that cease-fire” — i.e., put an end to the war. Yet in a moment of candor, Biden said that Hamas “would like a total cease-fire across the board, because then they see they have a better chance to survive and rebuild.”
So in other words, Biden is confirming that were current U.S. policy followed, Israel would refrain from clearing out the last remnants of Hamas, there would be a six-week cease-fire that would build toward a permanent cease-fire, and Hamas would be able to reconstitute and threaten Israel with repeated October 7 massacres as it has promised.
Israel, obviously, is not going to allow this to happen. So, by drawing the red line where he has, Biden is setting up a situation where it will look like a major act of defiance when Israel takes actions that are crucial to its national survival, that are overwhelmingly supported by its public, and that Biden knows Israel will take. Biden will then be forced to make a decision between abandoning his commitment to Israel, or appearing weak when Israel ignores his warnings and goes into Rafah.
What is incredible about Biden’s current positioning is that even putting aside the moral disgrace of his turn against Israel, he is actually making all of his supposed goals less likely to happen. Biden says he wants Hamas to agree to the six-week cease-fire proposal that is currently on the table. But Hamas hasn’t budged, and as the Wall Street Journal reported, the terrorist group is digging in, believing it has more leverage now because of “mounting U.S. pressure on Israel to do more to alleviate the suffering of Gazans.”
Biden believes that issuing stern warnings to Israel about Rafah will help him with the anti-Israel contingent within his party. But it will only backfire colossally when Israel inevitably goes into Rafah anyway. If he starts cutting off aid while Israel is fighting a war of self-defense in response to the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, it would be a historic breach in the U.S.–Israel relationship that would make his political problems a lot worse than the overblown “uncommitted” presence in Michigan.
The president would love the war to be over well before the election. But the quickest way to accomplish that would be for Israel to go into Rafah as soon as possible, and finish the job.