With a barely adequate press conference at the NATO summit, President Joe Biden may or may not have temporarily tamped down the Democrats’ rebellion seeking to remove him from office.
But his comments there on the Israel–Hamas war were a disgrace. Their entire tenor was critical of Israel, with barely a word supporting our ally or denouncing Hamas. He once again failed to make forceful demands for the release of U.S. hostages held by the terrorists. And at a time of massively rising antisemitism, the president failed to put down a moral marker against that vile and virulent prejudice.
Combined with Biden’s frequently unhelpful interference in Israeli war plans and his embarrassing sponsorship of a pier for humanitarian aid that proved to be an utter fiasco, Biden has been an impediment to resolving the conflict after a suitable show of support for Israel that ended a week after Hamas’s barbaric attack last Oct. 7.
Biden’s opening statement included six short sentences on Gaza, with a bare five words about bringing hostages home and a blanket declaration that “this war … should end now.” It was as if the problem is the “war” itself rather than Hamas’s evil and its use of human shields while brutalizing innocent hostages.
Later, Asma Khalid with NPR asked Biden “if there’s anything that you feel personally you wish you would have done differently over the course of the war.”
Biden’s immediate reply was to talk about all of his work with Arab partners to get “more aid and medicine into the Gaza Strip.” What about the need to destroy Hamas? Not a word. But he did manage to get in a dig at Israel right away, claiming it had been “less than cooperative” with aid, even though its army pleaded with Egypt to open its border to aid trucks and helped to set up aid corridors within Gaza itself.
Then Biden was off to the races with a pro forma statement about how long he allegedly has supported Israel, followed immediately by a “but.” Here, the “but” was that “This war Cabinet is one of the most conservative war Cabinets in the history of — of Israel. And there’s no ultimate answer other than a two-state solution here.”
The makeup of Israel’s war Cabinet should be no concern of Biden’s. And there are several possible answers other than the creation of a Palestinian state. They include the elimination of Hamas.
Then came this: “The question has been from the beginning: What’s the day after in Gaza? And the day after in Gaza has to be — the end — the end of the day after it has to be no occupation by Israel on the Gaza Strip, as well as the ability for us to access — get in and out, as rapidly as you can, all that’s needed there.”
Biden asserted that the problem is the “occupation by Israel,” not that the problem is that terrorists want to wipe Israel from the map and kill all its people. Or that Hamas steals humanitarian aid and uses it in its murder of innocents.
Biden didn’t even stop there. He praised himself for warning “Bibi” (note the lack of formal respect) not to make the mistake of occupying territory. Then, again with the focus on the idea that Israel is doing everything wrong, he said, “So, there’s a lot of things that, in retrospect, I wish I had been able to convince the Israelis to do. But the bottom line is we have a chance now. It’s time to end this war.”
Only then did he say that after ending the war, Israel still could “go after … Hamas.” Our narcissistic president concluded by claiming, as if this were the real point of everything, that “my numbers are better in Israel than they are here.”
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His “numbers.” Polls. Not the terror, the loss of life, the attempted genocide of Jews. Biden thinks his polls are good, so, to answer NPR, he doesn’t regret much.
Meanwhile, Hamas continues to hold five Americans hostage. Biden showed no urgency, much less dudgeon, about their plight. As we said: disgraceful.