The Israel of the First Prime Minister, Shalom Lipner, and the Security Issues of the Second World: A Conversation with a Founding Father
Shalom Lipner, who was an adviser to seven consecutive Israeli prime ministers, said Mr. Biden was akin to the first Jewish president and now more popular in Israel than the country’s own leaders. Mr. Lipner said that the history here is not just from today. “He’s always been there.”
Waleed Shahid, a former leader of Justice Democrats, predicted that the current environment, in which leaders of both parties, including President Biden, are aligned with Israeli leadership and the Palestinian cause is represented by protesters in the streets and on college campuses, would yield a trove of fund-raising for pro-Israel groups ahead of 2024. He said there might be a fight during the primaries.
Mr. Blinken said Mr. Biden was able to be blunt with Mr. Netanyahu behind the scenes. “Because the president has so much credibility built up over so many years with Israelis, with the Jewish community here, he’s able to have very direct and sometimes, as warranted, very hard conversations that maybe others would have more difficulty having,” he said.
In those private sessions, advisers said, Mr. Biden asks pointed questions rather than lecturing. Why do you want to do it this way? Do you know what will happen next? What have you done to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza?
“He genuinely feels that it’s not his place to tell another leader how to handle his own politics,” said Jonah Blank, who advised Mr. Biden on the Middle East during his Senate days. He will give advice, but he won’t do it like Tony Soprano.
An American Hero Who Wasn’t: The War on Israel, the Holocaust, and the Holocaust. A Memorino for David Blinken
“The world was wrong — failing to respond to Hitler’s atrocities against the Jews — and we should be ashamed,” he quoted his father saying in one of his memoirs.
“This is something, as I’ve seen it and experienced it, that goes in a sense from his gut to his heart to his head,” Mr. Blinken said of the president in a phone interview. He said that other presidents might process the situation through an intellectual policy lens. “But there’s something, as I’ve been able to witness it, that seems more visceral for him.”
When Biden speaks for himself at the next Democratic convention, it will happen in August of 2024. Will he be able to tell the American people that he did his job? Will he be able to make that claim in the face of international crises more consequential than anything either Obama or Donald Trump faced during their presidencies?
I was so affected by the statement that Romney would do a better job as president than Obama, it was not just because of it being true, but also because it reinforced two of a president’s most vital tasks: preserving prosperity at home and security abroad. A War-weary nation was looking for a clear win while people still recovering from the recession needed economic stability. The killing of bin Laden was the greatest victory of the war on terrorism, and the preservation of General Motors, an iconic American company, resonated as a national symbol as important as or more important than the number of jobs saved.
Consider what he confronts: a brutal Russian assault on a liberal democracy in Europe, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and an aggressive China that is gaining military strength and threatens Taiwan. That’s two hot wars and a new cold war, each against a nation or entity that forsakes any meaningful moral norms, violates international law and commits crimes against humanity.
In war, America is essential to the defense of democracy and basic humanity. Ukraine cannot withstand a yearslong Russian onslaught unless the United States acts as the arsenal of democracy, keeping the Ukrainian military supplied with the weapons and munitions it needs. America is Israel’s indispensable ally and close military partner. It depends on our aid and — just as important — our good will for much of its strength and security. And Taiwan is a target of opportunity for China absent the might of the United States Pacific Fleet.
Biden is trying to make sure that the nation emerges from an epidemic of inflation and decline in its economy intact. Despite the fact that America is the envy of the world with low unemployment and high economic growth, Americans are dealing with the consequences of inflation and do not feel optimistic about the economic future.
Biden is now under fire from two sides, making these challenges even more difficult. The populist, Trumpist right threatens his ability to fund Ukraine, hoping to engineer a cutoff in aid that could well lead to the greatest victory for European autocrats since Hitler and then Stalin swallowed European democracies whole in their quest for power and control.
What makes political leaders in the face of terrorism and Hamas? The moment-by-moment reaction of the Israeli public to the news cycle
It is hard to watch large-scale bombing campaigns in Gaza that kill civilians, no matter the precise nature of each strike. Hamas is currently embedded in the civilian population. It is impossible to defeat Hamas without harming civilians, and each new civilian death is a profound tragedy, one that unfolds in front of a watching world. It’s a testament to our shared humanity that one of our first instincts when we see such violence is to say, “Please, just stop.”
I understand both the good-faith right-wing objections to Ukraine aid and the good-faith progressive calls for a cease-fire in Israel. Ukraine needs an extraordinary amount of American support for a war that has no end in sight. It is better to rally the west when the Ukranians advance. It’s much harder to sustain American support in the face of grinding trench warfare, the kind of warfare that consumes men and material at a terrifying pace.
This instinct is magnified when the combination of the fog of war and Hamas disinformation can cause exaggerated or even outright false claims of Israeli atrocities to race across the nation and the world before the full truth is known. The sheer scale of the Israeli response is difficult to grasp, and there is no way for decent people to see the death and destruction and not feel anguish for the plight of the innocent.
The combination of tragedy, confusion and cost is what makes leadership so difficult. A good leader can’t overreact to any given news cycle. He or she can’t overreact to any specific report from the battlefield. And a good leader certainly can’t overreact to a negative poll.
I’ve long thought that politicians’ moment-by-moment reaction to activists, to members of the media and to polls is partly responsible for the decline in trust in American politicians. Evidence of instability in the aggregate is what can give you a responsive feeling in the moment. The desperate desire to win each and every news cycle leads to short-term thinking. Politicians put out fires they see on social media, or they change course in response to anger coming from activists. Activists and critics want an immediate response from the media but they don’t know what a thoughtful, deliberate strategy would look like.
No administration is perfect. Americans should object, for example, to the slow pace of approving each new weapons system for Ukraine. But in each key theater, Biden’s policies are fundamentally sound. It is necessary to preserve Ukrainian independence if we are to support it. We should stand by Israel as it responds to mass murder, including by supporting a lawful offensive into the heart of Gaza. And we should continue to strengthen alliances in the Pacific to enhance our allies’ military capabilities and share the burden of collective defense.
Later on Thursday, he also provided a wider moral context. Asked at a news conference about Biden’s observation that innocents will continue to die as Israel presses its attacks, Kirby responded with facts we cannot forget: “What’s harsh is the way Hamas is using people as human shields. What’s harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families anxious, waiting and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are. A bunch of young people are slaughtering each other just trying to enjoy an afternoon at a music festival.
Jews make up 10 percent of our district but we have Muslim, Arab, Palestinian people who are afraid for their families and their lives.
George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, is considering a challenge to RepresentativeJAMAAL BOYNTON, who beat the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2020.
Some progressive organizations are planning on challenging Representatives Cori Bush of Missouri, and other members of congress who are funded by pro-Israel groups.
“They spent a historic amount of money to intervene, and try and buy primaries in 2022,” said Usamah Andrabi, spokesman for Justice Democrats, the liberal insurgent group that helped elect many of the progressives now on the primary target list. I think that we will see a doubling and tripling down, because nobody is trying to stop them.
According to the group’s spokesman, Marshall Wittmann, the priority at the moment is building and sustaining congressional support for Israel’s fight to permanently dismantle Hamas.
The jabs have begun. The lobbying group called the resolution a ploy to paint Israel as the aggressor and allow Hamas to control Gaza. Hitting Ms. Lee, AIPAC wrote on X, “Emboldening a group that massacres Israelis and uses Palestinians as human shields will never achieve peace.”
He said there could be consequences for not supporting the cause of war since there is a lot of fear.