President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel – which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza – if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
So many weasel words in this declaration, from “major” invasion to stopping the supply of “the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah.”
Next we hear that what’s happening now is only a minor invasion, but they’ve halted the supply of US catapults and siege engines just to be on the safe side.
I think this is a good breakdown of the situation, and sadly it’s pretty typical Biden: one side wants pizza, the other hamburger, and he offers a pizzaburger that no one likes.
Get a spine, man. You’re going to get called Hamas’ favorite president by the warmongers whether you cut off one bomb or all of them, so there’s no benefit to taking a symbolic stance while still allowing the operation to proceed. They can’t actually do this if we cut off all bombs, but they certainly can if you just cut off 1% of their supply or whatever this is.
That said, there good news here. It’s progress. After 7 months, I was of the belief that Biden was totally immune to pressure. He’s pretty resilient to it, but clearly the combined effects – both the campus protests, the civil disobedience, the constant bird dogging at every campaign event – are moving him, and the general mainstream consensus. Let’s keep that up.