Whether it’s diplomacy or high strategy, the Biden administration’s obliviousness knows no bounds.
Diplomacy first: “I don’t think you have the credit for that,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel’s War Cabinet last week, right after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “The entire Israeli society is united behind the goal of dismantling Hamas, even if it takes months.”
Meaning: The Biden administration won’t stand by Jerusalem for a protracted fight.
Blinken also offered up a list of impossible demands: “The massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale we saw in northern Gaza [must] not be repeated in the south”; Israel must “clearly and precisely” designate civilian safe zones and avoid “enduring internal displacement.”
We don’t actually know how “massive” civilian losses have been; Hamas cites deaths over 10,000, but it counts its own casualties in that figure.
Yes, civilian suffering is vast: There’s a war on; most Gazans have fled the north (despite Hamas shooting at them when they flee) and will have to flee to the safe zones Israel’s already designating in the south as the IDF moves in.
And out of the areas where the IDF announces it’s going next — thereby, as The Post’s Caitlin Doornos reports, sacrificing the huge military advantage of surprise in order to minimize civilian suffering.
That, notes IDF Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler, is why “you can find so many videos of Palestinians standing outside of buildings that they had been told to leave, filming the strike from their own phone standing there because they know that we’re going to hit.”
The IDF is also taking casualties by sending in ground forces to clear known Hamas strongholds rather than starting with airstrikes — trading Israeli lives to protect ordinary Gazans.
That lets Israeli special forces disarm the various civilian-killing booby traps Hamas leaves behind, and avoids civilian-slaughtering secondary explosions from bombs igniting Hamas ammo dumps.
The IDF assault on the terror bases in and around Al-Shifa hospital are a case in point: Yes, patients suffered in having to evacuate — but far fewer innocent lives were lost than when that terrorist rocket misfired into the Al-Ahli hospital parking lot.
Israel will keep on finding new ways to keep civilian casualties down, but it can’t stop fighting until Hamas is annihilated.
Blinken admits that overriding truth: “Hamas cannot remain in control of Gaza,” but he’s made it clear President Biden won’t give the Israelis the “credit” needed to take too long to do it — even though taking more time would help keep civilian deaths down.
Call it “Catch-22” diplomacy.
Meanwhile, Team Biden’s strategic decision to barely respond to attacks on US forces across the Mideast is now paying off — for Iran and its “axis of resistance.”
Houthi forces (armed and financed by Tehran) in Yemen last week fired at a US warship engaged in freeing a civilian ship from Houthi pirates — and on Sunday they escalated, firing on the USS Carney and multiple commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
The signal is unmistakable: Worse is ahead, at least as long as the Israel-Hamas war continues.
Iran has ordered up what Biden fears most: escalation.
In his mind, that leads straight to a much larger war — Vietnam, say, if not World War III; count on him to push Jerusalem even harder to end the fighting soon, even with the job unfinished.
For nearly two years, Vladimir Putin’s been pushing the same Biden-panic button to keep the prez from getting Ukraine the advanced weapons it most needs to beat off the Russian invasion; now Iran’s using it to manipulate him into undercutting Israel.
Biden sees the right side in these conflicts, but all the rest of his instincts serve the bad guys’ interests.