Some 15,000 American bombs and 18,000 dead (50,000 wounded) Palestinians later, the US president has opined that Israel is “starting to lose support by [its] indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza. He is said to have had “blunt private conversations with Netanyahu” about Israeli tactics, though how an American defines “blunt” likely differs markedly from the Israeli version.
Curious minds wonder. Might Biden have admitted this before justifying Israel’s response to October 7 rhetorically and, more significantly, through round-the-clock deliveries of munitions that enabled the carnage? And what, exactly, has caused Biden to go from fellating Bibi in Tel Aviv in October to accusing him of war crimes a few weeks later?
It’s not as if the Administration, like virtually everyone else on the planet, couldn’t have anticipated what Israel was going to do with the endless supply of high-tech munitions that it was begging the US to deliver. Israel’s military command made it clear from the beginning that its intent was to do exactly what it’s doing.
Specifically, on 10 October, an IDF spokesman confirmed that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy” The same day, Defense Minister Gallant announced: “I have lowered all the restraints – we will kill everyone we fight against; we will use every means.” Can’t accuse him of misleading the public.
Biden has enabled this. For two months he has stood by, aware of what was happening. Beyond the usual weak-tea admonitions to avoid civilian casualties—admonitions the Israeli government knows, from years of experience, it can ignore without repercussions—US military support for Israel’s war machine has been unlimited.
Israel admits that all of its “missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.” Most countries could only dream of such leverage.
Yet one wouldn’t know that from what comes out of Washington. True to a form perfected over decades, Washington publicly bleats helplessness over Israeli conduct while, behind the scenes, very much making that conduct possible. That is bullshit in pursuit of the obscene, polished to finest quality.
Postscript:
Per Biden, Netanyahu, ballsy as ever in that Trumpian, go-fuck-yourself way, told him that, “You carpet-bombed Germany, you dropped the atom bomb, a lot of civilians died”. To which Biden said: “[T]hat’s why all these institutions were set up after World War Two to see to it that it didn’t happen again … don’t make the same mistakes we made in 9/11.”
And, for the first time, a US president has publicly stated what also has long been obvious to the world: “ [Israelis] do not want a two-state solution.” In a small way, Washington has finally revealed the Israeli con. Not that that will deter Israel from its destruction and displacement of Palestinians.
