On a Rainy Day

[AloeVera]

41. The attempts at restraint failed because there was little behind them to make them serious.

Cajoling, pleading, working "relentlessly" while imposing no real consequences, founded on some quaint belief that somehow Netanyahu would see the light - while ignoring the powerful levers of U.S. laws and U.S. military assistance - that's not serious.

The U.S. President should not have to do this with an ally:

"If you were trying to get aid in, you had to do it through subterfuge, bureaucratic tactics, as opposed to a defined policy," another former senior official said. "You were on your back foot the entire god**** time."

Almost nothing got done unless top officials like Secretary of State Antony Blinken, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew or Satterfield called Netanyahu or his adviser Ron Dermer, or Gallant. Even Biden himself had to make calls negotiating what number of aid trucks would be let in from the border crossings, according to sources. This was the kind of time-consuming, in-the-weeds work normally carried out by a government desk officer, not the most senior leaders in the White House and the State Department.

Bolding mine.

It's absurd that the most powerful man in the world, as the U.S. President is known, was reduced to pleading with Netanyahu to allow Palestinians to eat - one truck or convoy at a time - or to live.

It's not as if the U.S. is dependent on Israel for its survival. But without the U.S., Israel would not exist and that is a fact. So no one can persuade me that we had no options, no leverage, no ability to "restrain". And I am well aware of the obstacles put up by Republicans and the history of U.S. support for Israel by both parties, which brings me to another point, a delicate one here on DU but related to the topic of this o/p of honest and open discussion.

In the article you linked to, there is a section about Biden's personal, not just political, commitment to Israel, which he views as a moral stance, and his honest belief that defeating Hamas with whatever it takes was the right moral choice. This is the crux of the matter for anyone who wants to truly understand why Gaza unfolded the way it did. To assert that it was always like this, with every President, is wrong objectively and historically. Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, HW Bush, Obama - all asserted their authority in times of crises or to enforce policy or moral beliefs - and they were successful, though some did pay a price later. But they did what they thought was morally right. I venture that none of them had Biden's level of personal commitment to Israel or the ideology behind it, which Biden himself proclaimed publicly.

I admire and respect Biden for his many accomplishments and general good and kind nature, but I think he made a tragic mistake here by giving too much weight to his personal beliefs about Israel - rooted in another era and another Israel - with far-reaching and devastating consequences and I think we should be able to express that opinion without fear. Simply and perhaps brutally put, "not enough was done" because Israel's "security" in the future was judged more important than Palestinian lives in the present. And that all goes back to personal beliefs - not good policy, politics or a winning electoral strategy, as we found out.

Most democrats, including elected ones and candidates, have come to understand all this. 40 out of 47 Democratic Senators voted for Sanders' bill to stop certain arms and bulldozers being used to demolish homes for land grabs and ethnic cleansing. That is a historical vote. That one of the dissenters was the Senate Leader is a terrible look! Democrats in disarray indeed. Why not let the Democratic Party be the party that is most in tune with the majority of AMERICANS, not just democrats on the issue of illegal wars and genocide. It may not be an important issue to you but it is to a large swath of the electorate, including many independents. Continuing to defend and rationalize what the voters have already judged - and most of the Democratic caucus now agrees with them - that's not helping the party to win elections.