r/neoliberal • u/Broad_Procedure • Oct 08 '24

lmao Restricted

1.7k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

u/rockop0tamus NATO Oct 08 '24

I don’t get it, if the Biden admin believes that Netanyahu is this bad actor why isn’t there more of an effort to reign him in? Like conditioning aid has largely been an empty threat.

53

u/kinky-proton African Union Oct 08 '24

Because, Obama tried in his last couple of years, got humiliated by bibi and congress then supported Trump.

19

u/The-OneAnd-Only Oct 08 '24

Don’t help that Obama’s own VP or leadership (Schumer) constantly undermine him every time he did.

That’s without talking about republicans coming out every time Obama was tough on Bibi and saying he abandoning Israel

78

u/Spectrum1523 Oct 08 '24

A few reasons I can think of

a) they are making efforts to reign him in privately which are not working

B) Bibi is purposefully making the US either tacitly agree with him or directly force him to stop, betting that the US will not escalate

C) half of voters think Isreal is doing the right thing with these escalations

25

u/FearlessPark4588 Gay Pride Oct 08 '24

d) An unhinged Netanyahu is still better to have diplomatic relationships with in terms of our own foreign policy than without him, Israel is strategic to us and they can leverage that

6

u/IRequirePants Oct 08 '24

C) half of voters think Isreal is doing the right thing with these escalations

Explain the escalation here? This is before the pager attack. Hezbollah was firing thousands of rockets. 100,000 Israelis were internally displaced. Israel responded by killed a high-level Hezbollah commanders with American blood on his hands.

6

u/Spectrum1523 Oct 08 '24

I don't think it's controversial to say that Isreal has escalated its offensive against Hezbollah, is it? They were doing very little in the north because of the major military action in Gaza and they've clearly refocused

4

u/IRequirePants Oct 08 '24

I don't think it's controversial to say that Isreal has escalated its offensive against Hezbollah, is it?

It was when this quote was made.

1

u/Spectrum1523 Oct 09 '24

oh, okay. that's true - my comment was thinking about the current situation.

27

u/Specialist_Seal Oct 08 '24

Because the American public is largely supportive of Israel and it's an election year. It would allow Republicans to be the pro-Israel party as opposed to the anti-Israel Democrats. It would also now put in Harris in an even more awkward position trying to balance being seen as pro-Israel but also not as anti-Palestinian as Republicans.

33

u/[deleted] Oct 08 '24

Because it's an election year and that would be spun as being a failure of the administration, not a moral decision to stop enabling a warmongerer.

13

u/Hannig4n YIMBY Oct 08 '24 edited Oct 08 '24

Because despite Netanyahu’s abysmal leadership and bloodthirsty behavior, the vast majority of Americans still strongly prefer the Israeli government to literal terrorist armies committed to the eradication of Jews from the region, and weakening aid wouldn’t accomplish anything to help to secure a ceasefire and would only harm Israel’s security.

The benefit of conditioning aid is that it washes the hands of the US from whatever breaches of IHL that Israel may be committing, but it doesn’t help to make peace happen. It may push Israel to make more concessions, but it incentivizes Hamas to do the opposite.