Joe is both “Genocide Joe” and “Pro Hamas Joe” depending on who you ask. The way I see it, he’s an unpopular president of a deeply fractured country with fascism knocking on the door while a geopolitical ally is commiting atrocities and another is is being attacked by our historic adversary. He is being faced with a million prisoner’s trolley problemmas. This won’t obsolve him of his role in the conflict, but we should recognize that he is in a precarious position with some very real reasons to have pause.

Take note: Biden has been able to pass a shit ton of legislation and so did LBJ, but to think either of them got a free lunch is deeply misguided. LBJ had to make Vietnam happen to get the welfare state. “I gave you your damn war, now give me my programs”.

With the election coming up, he can’t just consider Palestine as the only priority. Medicare funding. Voting rights. Abortion rights. Gun control. Debt forgiveness. Inflation. Climate change. If he loses the moderate vote, which is not as pro-palestine as the progressive left, he loses everything. (Side note: this is why you absolutely should vote for Biden. If he and the DNC sees that the progressive left cary a large portion of their votes, they will act accordingly. People who don’t vote are politically useless)

If you follow a multitude of news outlets, you might pick up on how Joe and Netanyahu have had strained relations (you can imagine how those calls are going). Joe continues the US stance of a two state solution (remember that Trump favors full Israeli control of Palestine).

I mean, yes we need to continue to push for Joe to call for a cease fire, but immediately pulling the plug on Israel funding will have negative consequences domestically and abroad.

Remember that Iran is set to have nuclear capabilities by the end of the year. While there needs to be freedom for Palestine, let’s not pretend an anti Zionist solution won’t result in millions of dead Jews. If “well one side needs to agree to be annihilated” is your solution, you won’t find peace anytime soon as people won’t just agree to die, especially people with a well equipped Army (and an undisclosed amount of nukes).

The other possibility is that Israel wouldn’t just take losing funding from the US. If we cut ties with Israel completely, they would look to their older ally, Russia (people forget Israel once was cozy with Moscow). We need Israel to stop their genocide, but we certainly don’t want them, nor their nukes, as an enemy.

That said there are good reasons to cut funding. Cutting funding could be the push to get Israelis to oust Bibi in favor of a more liberal government. Cutting funding could boost the US in popularity with our NATO allies and also woo India, Brazil, and South Africa away from China and Russia. We have to ask if the risk is worth it, and what are the odds of each outcome.

If you’re interested in why leaders don’t come to the same obvious conclusions that you do, I would recommend CGP Grey’s 20 minute video, Rules for Rulers

If this shit was easy there wouldn’t be a degree in Political Science.