Israel, Gaza, and the Last Days of the War: The Case for a Truncated, Unadulterated, Right-Evil White House

That the massacres were “pure, unadulterated evil.” That there is “no excuse” for what Hamas did. That Israel has a duty to defend itself, not simply a right. The surge of military force will make good on the United States’ commitment to a Jewish state. A few days later, in an interview with “60 Minutes,” he called the assault “barbarism that is as consequential as the Holocaust.”

Given the moral void on the right, we need Biden’s leadership. It was always the type of Jewish conservative who insisted that Israel had never had a better friend in the White House that hectored me during Donald Trumps presidency. Trump takes a dimmer view of Netanyahu because he can not forgive him for calling Biden to wish him good luck in 2020 even though he failed to win the election. Four days after the Hamas attacks, Trump also called Hezbollah, without reprobation, “very smart.” About Vladimir Putin, he also said, “I got along with him very good.”

Biden will be going to Israel. It’s a brave trip, even for a president with his vast security apparatus, given that Hamas’s rockets continue to fall indiscriminately on Israel and a second front with Hezbollah could open at any time. He’s going to console the grieving and give courage to those who are afraid. This ismanship is in the middle of opposition and criticism. The best time for the president is at this hour.

“The timing and optics of such a significant visit couldn’t be any worse,” said Charles Lister, the director of counterterrorism at the Middle East Institute. It doesn’t matter what happened at the hospital in Gaza as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. The tensions have been heightened to a point that we haven’t seen before.

When Gaza was facing a humanitarian catastrophe and anger was raging across the Middle East, Air Force One departed with an American president bound for Tel Aviv.

As Air Force One sat on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, White House officials told reporters that the summit in Jordan planned for Wednesday had been abruptly canceled. It wasn’t clear for a moment whether or not the plane would take off to the Middle East. Mr. Biden did not answer questions on his way out.