Biden, a supposed foreign policy pragmatist, doesn’t seem bothered that the US is one of the few states that continues to wholeheartedly sustain Israel’s war on Gaza. In fact, Biden has staked his political future on his support for Netanyahu and Israel – and Biden is losing. In this year’s presidential election, where he will most likely face Donald Trump once again, Biden has already lost support among young progressives, Black and Arab American voters, who are all rightfully angry at his refusal to restrain Israel.
Biden allies are raising the alarm that he could lose Michigan, a swing state with substantial Black, Arab and Muslim American voting blocs, because of his Middle East policies. Congressman Ro Khanna, a Biden supporter and progressive Democrat from California who has tried to mediate between Biden’s campaign and Michigan Democrats, warned his team this week: “We cannot win Michigan with status quo policy.”
The Biden administration has consistently underplayed the leverage it has over Israel and Netanyahu. “I think that sometimes people pretend that the United States of America has a magic wand that it can wave to make any situation in the world roll out in exactly the way that we would want it to and that is never the case,” Matthew Miller, the state department spokesperson, said at a press conference on 12 February.
Miller’s flippant comment raises an important question: if Biden can’t use billions of dollars in military aid – and the ability to literally cut off Israel’s supply of bombs – to force Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire, what could Biden do with a magic wand?
Was that the deal that fell through because Hamas doesn’t want to release everyone? It’s really getting hard to keep track.
And I think you can tell that at the end of the day Biden can’t force jack shit. Taking away resources is not going to lead to peace it’s going to make everyone more desperate and irrational.
That deal seems to be a similar deal from israel as they one they presented before the permanent ceasefire offer from Hamas.
The article this post is about sure thinks otherwise:
Congress WANTS to send that money. Biden can’t just unilaterally cut that off without risking big consequences back home, like a government shutdown.
Also, those last 2 paragraphs you quoted sum up the problem quite well.
Biden bypassed congress to send weapons to israel. Because Congress did not want to pass the bill with those weapons (not for the most moral reason but at least they blocked it).
And Biden most certainly can single handedly cut off the weapons supply by just saying israel commits war crimes. Which would by law prevent America from giving them more weapons.