Your comment is pretty reasonable but I don’t think you’re misinterpreting the criticism of Biden here. The US is and has been supplying Israel with virtually unlimited arms and support for decades now. This support has come with very few strings attached. Biden could easily make aid contingent on many of the things you mention, and it would put the Israeli government in a real bind, forcing them to make concessions that their right wing doesn’t want to make. Biden isn’t being blamed for the whole conflict, and isn’t expected to fix it on his own. But he’s got a lot of leverage that he refuses to use in the interests of peace. This same problem recurs with basically every president, as AIPAC’s influence on the American government is substantial.
I can agree with that. I think that’s a valid and convincing point. There should be conditions on the military equipment that we send to Israel just like their is with the stuff that we send to Ukraine. I’m not sure exactly what those conditions should be (beyond the obvious stuff like “follow international laws surrounding war crimes”), but I certainly think it’s only reasonable that we should have a say in how our weapons are used if we are sending them over.
Would that be enough to satisfy critics at home and abroad? Would that appease the people who are saying that Biden is somehow complicit in “genocide”? I’m not so sure about that, but I think it would at least send the appropriate message that there are red lines that must not be crossed, even if that is mostly a symbolic gesture. At best people are very vague about what they want Biden to do, and at worst they’re calling for a one-state solution (either that Israel should annex Gaza and the West Bank from the extreme right, or that Palestine should control the territory “from the river to the sea” from the extreme left–both of these being more representative of genocide than even what we’re seeing today).
The only reasonable, non-genocidal (as in not involving mass murder or displacement of either people) solution is for Israelis and Palestinians to coexist, hopefully peacefully, and maybe even one day (dare to dream) cooperatively.
One thing is for sure, Israel (and the US, by extension) are not going to be satisfied with any conclusion to this chapter in the [decades long] conflict that doesn’t return the hostages, strip Hamas of power and remove any chance of a future attack coming out of Gaza.
Your comment is pretty reasonable but I don’t think you’re misinterpreting the criticism of Biden here. The US is and has been supplying Israel with virtually unlimited arms and support for decades now. This support has come with very few strings attached. Biden could easily make aid contingent on many of the things you mention, and it would put the Israeli government in a real bind, forcing them to make concessions that their right wing doesn’t want to make. Biden isn’t being blamed for the whole conflict, and isn’t expected to fix it on his own. But he’s got a lot of leverage that he refuses to use in the interests of peace. This same problem recurs with basically every president, as AIPAC’s influence on the American government is substantial.
I can agree with that. I think that’s a valid and convincing point. There should be conditions on the military equipment that we send to Israel just like their is with the stuff that we send to Ukraine. I’m not sure exactly what those conditions should be (beyond the obvious stuff like “follow international laws surrounding war crimes”), but I certainly think it’s only reasonable that we should have a say in how our weapons are used if we are sending them over.
Would that be enough to satisfy critics at home and abroad? Would that appease the people who are saying that Biden is somehow complicit in “genocide”? I’m not so sure about that, but I think it would at least send the appropriate message that there are red lines that must not be crossed, even if that is mostly a symbolic gesture. At best people are very vague about what they want Biden to do, and at worst they’re calling for a one-state solution (either that Israel should annex Gaza and the West Bank from the extreme right, or that Palestine should control the territory “from the river to the sea” from the extreme left–both of these being more representative of genocide than even what we’re seeing today).
The only reasonable, non-genocidal (as in not involving mass murder or displacement of either people) solution is for Israelis and Palestinians to coexist, hopefully peacefully, and maybe even one day (dare to dream) cooperatively.
One thing is for sure, Israel (and the US, by extension) are not going to be satisfied with any conclusion to this chapter in the [decades long] conflict that doesn’t return the hostages, strip Hamas of power and remove any chance of a future attack coming out of Gaza.