What is the alternative? If we stop sending weapons we give up our leverage. Biden has managed to get notable concessions out of Netanyahu that have saved lives, sacrificing that for dignity is the wrong thing to do.
Biden stopped Netanyahu from preemptively striking Lebanon last October, before Hezbollah had launched any rockets, he negotiated the opening of aid corridors, stopped the blockade from including clean water, etc, negotiated the temporary ceasefire, and put off the invasion of Rafah for months allowing the situation on the ground to meaningfully change and forcing the Israeli's to have some sort of plan for the civilians (even if it was bear-bones).
The key thing to bear in mind here is that Israel acts more aggressively when it feels less secure. It is capable of military action without US military aid, it would just be bloodier and more aggressive.
As he said in the article (something like) "I knew they were going to do something but I ask them to do nothing so that they do less." This is how partnerships with independently minded, morally grey, allies tend to work. The same thing happened in the Cold War with the KMT, and S. Korea. In both of those cases we eliminated or heavily limited military aid to an ally in order to exert political pressure with disastrous results. Unfortunately, the United States is as strong as her allies, and right now we need to exert as much pressure on Israel as possible without compromising her security.I want more to be done, but this is a lot more complicated than Biden getting "dragged around by the nose".
"They want to commit genocide, so we have to keep giving them bigger and better military hardware with fewer and fewer strings attached" is a hell of a take, isn't it?
I initially read "We are talking about Palestine in the present tense rather than the past" in terms of "A two state solution is still being talked about as a realistic possibility," but I think he didn't mean it that way....
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u/SleazySpartan Madeleine Albright Oct 08 '24
What is the alternative? If we stop sending weapons we give up our leverage. Biden has managed to get notable concessions out of Netanyahu that have saved lives, sacrificing that for dignity is the wrong thing to do.
Biden stopped Netanyahu from preemptively striking Lebanon last October, before Hezbollah had launched any rockets, he negotiated the opening of aid corridors, stopped the blockade from including clean water, etc, negotiated the temporary ceasefire, and put off the invasion of Rafah for months allowing the situation on the ground to meaningfully change and forcing the Israeli's to have some sort of plan for the civilians (even if it was bear-bones).
The key thing to bear in mind here is that Israel acts more aggressively when it feels less secure. It is capable of military action without US military aid, it would just be bloodier and more aggressive.
As he said in the article (something like) "I knew they were going to do something but I ask them to do nothing so that they do less." This is how partnerships with independently minded, morally grey, allies tend to work. The same thing happened in the Cold War with the KMT, and S. Korea. In both of those cases we eliminated or heavily limited military aid to an ally in order to exert political pressure with disastrous results. Unfortunately, the United States is as strong as her allies, and right now we need to exert as much pressure on Israel as possible without compromising her security. I want more to be done, but this is a lot more complicated than Biden getting "dragged around by the nose".