Towards a better understanding of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as Vice President Joe Biden tells Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a White House Statement
The president’s family has taken heat from him. Mr. Biden told Muslim community leaders at the White House on Tuesday evening that the first lady, Jill Biden, had weighed in, telling him, “Stop it, stop it now, Joe.”
The president has refused to curb the flow of arms in order to influence Israel. After Hamas killed more than 1,200 people and took hundreds of hostages, Vice President Joe Biden said his support for Israel was rock solid. While he has increasingly criticized what he sees as the excesses of the military operation, he has until now stuck by his vow.
During a 30-minute call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, President Biden went further than ever in pressing for change in the military operation.
The Americans held out the possibility of consequences if Mr. Netanyahu did not comply with the agreement. Since the attack on aid workers in Gaza, which caused some groups to rethink their activities, the Secretary of State said Israel needed to do more to increase the flow of humanitarian supplies to Gaza.
Unlike previous comments, however, the latest White House statement made no mention of Oct. 7 nor the by-now ritual defense of Israel’s right to respond to Hamas. Instead, it emphasized that “an immediate cease-fire is essential” and said that Mr. Biden “urged the prime minister to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home.” A person briefed on the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said negotiators including William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, will travel to Cairo on Saturday for further talks on such a deal.
By the middle of the night in Jerusalem, Israel made its first gestures to Mr. Biden. In a statement, a spokeswoman for the U.S. National Security Council said Israel had agreed to use the Ashdod port to direct aid into Gaza, to open the Erez crossing into northern Gaza for the first time since the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, and to significantly increase deliveries from Jordan.
“If we lose that reverence for human life, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we confront,” Mr. Blinken said during a stop at NATO headquarters in Brussels. “Here’s the current reality in Gaza despite important steps that Israel has taken to allow assistance into Gaza: The results on the ground are woefully insufficient and unacceptable.”
The secretary of state made clear that the Biden administration was now ready to exact a price if Israel continued to rebuff its counsel. There will be changes in policy if we do not see the changes we need to see.
With rising angst on the political left, some of Mr. Biden’s closest Democratic allies, like Senator Chris Coons from Delaware, are coming around to the opinion that Washington should exercise more control over the weaponry.
“I think we’re at that point,” Mr. Coons said on CNN on Thursday morning, adding that if Mr. Netanyahu were to order the Israeli military into the southern Gaza city of Rafah in force and “drop thousand-pound bombs and send in a battalion to go after Hamas and make no provision for civilians or for humanitarian aid, that I would vote to condition aid to Israel.”
Mr. Netanyahu did not immediately release a description of his call with Mr. Biden, but in other comments on Thursday he appeared unbowed. In a meeting in Jerusalem with visiting Republican lawmakers organized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, known as AIPAC, the prime minister pushed back strongly against Mr. Biden’s longstanding insistence on a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict.
“There is a contrary move, an attempt to force, ram down our throats a Palestinian state, which will be another terror haven, another launching ground for an attempt, as was the Hamas state in Gaza,” Mr. Netanyahu said. That is against the will of Israelis.
He talked about the threat from Iran in a separate video statement. Israel is acting against Iran and its proxies in both defensive and offensive operations because of years of Iranian actions against it, according to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
He added that they would operate according to the principle of attacking those who attack or plan to attack them.
Israel and the War on Irregular Actions of the U.S.: A UN Security Council Report on the World Central Kitchen Shootout
Kirby didn’t say whether that could include a potential halt to U.S military aid to Israel.
The seven aid workers killed in Gaza by World Central Kitchen were the cause of the pivot. Mr Biden made a point of trying to call Mr.Andrés to express his sympathies.
Seven workers in Gaza were killed by a trio of strikes on their cars. Israeli officials have called the episode a tragic mistake based on a misidentification of the vehicles, but have not explained more expansively how it happened. The cars were marked with World Central Kitchen logos, although the attack took place at night. Mr. Andrés said that his organization kept in touch with Israeli officials.
According to a senior Biden administration official, the Israelis had not yet given any information on their investigation into the strikes to the United States.
Mr. Biden’s shift on Thursday came as he absorbed withering criticism from Democrats. Among those speaking out have been former colleagues in the administration he served as vice president under President Barack Obama, who assailed him for voicing shock without taking action against Mr. Netanyahu, known by the nickname Bibi.
“The U.S. government is still supplying 2 thousand pound bombs and ammunition to support Israel’s policy,” Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama, wrote on social media on Wednesday. This outrage is meaningless until there are substantive consequences. Bibi obviously doesn’t care what the U.S. says, its about what the U.S. does.”
“He made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers,” the White House said in a statement after the call.
Israel did not provide an immediate response to the White House’s readout of the conversation, but on Wednesday, an Israeli official blamed the impasse in the cease-fire talks on the U.S. decision to allow a U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolution to pass on March 25.
The U.S. move “caused harm to the momentum of the negotiations,” because Hamas hardened its positions, the official said in a briefing with U.S. media outlets, including NPR. He was not authorized to speak on the matter, but he spoke on condition of anonymity.
The US said at the time that the vote did not signify a change in policy, and that the administration was perplexed by Israel’s anger.
The temporary cease-fire would take effect during the month of Ramadan, in exchange for the release of hostages. The end of the Muslim holy month ofRamadan is a week away.
The Up First newsletter: Order Israel to change course on Gaza aid; No Labels backs out of 2024 race (https://npr.org/2024/04/05/1242991224)
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Source: Biden orders Israel to change course on Gaza aid; No Labels backs out of 2024 race
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