Despite the ongoing hot conflicts across the globe, the U.S.-led coalition’s strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, and the reported imminence of retaliatory strikes against Iranian and Iran-adjacent outposts following a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of three American soldiers, the only headlines that emerged from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s Thursday press conference related to his disappearing act.

Austin made news, somehow, by performing another mea culpa for his failure to inform either the president or his subordinates that he was spending several days in hospital amid complications from prostate-cancer treatment. But as long as we’re all focusing on statements Austin made that have no bearing on America’s current and impending military obligations, we should devote some of our attention to a grotesque act of cowardice in which the secretary engaged.

During Thursday’s presser, Austin pivoted to a reporter from Al Jazeera who pivoted from the topics du jour toward his and his network’s eternal bugbear: Israel. In the process, this reporter served up one of the most languid softballs that any administration official could ever hope for:

Back in December in your speech at the Reagan Library, you told Israeli leaders they have to protect civilian lives in Gaza. Since that speech, 12,000 more Palestinians have been killed. We’re now at 27,000 Palestinians killed. Why are you still supporting this war when this government that is the most extreme in the history of Israel led by someone who refuses to recognize any political rights for the Palestinians and with elements that are calling for ethnic cleansing and displacement for Palestinians. Do Palestinians have the right to dignity? As you said in Angola when I was with you on a trip — you said, “The future belongs to those who protect dignity, not trample it.”

This is an easy one. You don’t need to pore over the briefing books or spend hours undergoing media training to knock this one out of the park. The figures and facts are dubious, at best. The assumptions are informed by ignorance and bias. The premise should be easy to reject. But Austin did none of that. Instead, he turned in one of the most pusillanimous performances any administration official has managed since the October 7 massacre.

“I said that in a speech at the Reagan forum,” he said, after an anguished pause.

I’ve said that to my counterpart, Minister [Yoav] Galant, every time I talk to him, and I talk to him every week. I emphasize the importance of protecting civilian lives. I also emphasize the importance of providing humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians. It’s critical — it’s really important.

So far, there’s nothing objectionable in this exercise in throat-clearing. But this should have been the point at which Austin challenged the suppositions of the Al Jazeera reporter. That is not what he did.

“There’s no question that is a tough – it’s been a tough conflict,” the defense secretary intoned.

But as I said earlier, we are starting to see the Israelis kind of shift their stance and change their approach to a more focused and controlled — well, “controlled” is probably not the right word — but focused effort, focused on a discreet set of objectives. We talked to them about that weeks ago, and they said they were going to do that, and they are doing that.

This was an exhibition of poltroonery on a historic scale. Austin might have objected to the rote recitation of the Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry’s casualty figures (which weren’t reliable even before the current conflict). After all, we’re told that Gaza is a war-torn hellscape where no authority, civilian or otherwise, exists. And yet, its health ministry can, with pinpoint accuracy, produce casualty figures for the men, women, and children supposedly caught up in the fighting — all while updating them on an almost hourly basis. Of course, it’s all nonsense, and Austin should have called Al Jazeera out on it. He didn’t.

Additionally, Austin tacitly accepted the notion that Israel has done little — or, at least, not enough — to protect the civilians Hamas deliberately puts in harm’s way. That conflicts irreconcilably with statements provided by other Biden-administration officials, including White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. For his part, Kirby has lauded Israel for taking measures to protect civilian lives — measures ranging from the preservation of “deconfliction routes,” to “telegraphing their punches,” to preserving ongoing medical care in the hospitals that Israeli forces have liberated from Hamas’s occupation under fire. These measures exceed even the United States’ steps to avoid civilian deaths in a war zone.

As a cherry atop this abject display, Austin supplicated further by offering up some eager self-criticism:

I will continue to emphasize — and I know Secretary Blinken and President Biden will continue to emphasize — the importance of addressing the issue of the Palestinian people. It’s critical. You know, we’re doing more, but we’re not doing enough.

We’re doing plenty, Mr. Secretary. So is Israel. And all of us are operating in a defensive posture amid hostilities that were imposed on us by rogue actors loyal to the illegitimate theocratic regime in Tehran. If Austin had the requisite confidence in that posture, he might have bristled at the sordid implications his interlocutor from Al Jazeera bombarded him with. His lack of any discernible pride in America, our allies, and our collective undertaking is deeply disconcerting.