Biden supplies both bombs and food, putting himself in the middle of the war in Gaza

Today, American bombs and American food pallets are falling from the skies over Gaza, bringing death and life at the same time and illustrating President Biden’s elusive attempt to find balance in an unbalanced war in the Middle East.

The president’s decision to authorize airborne landings and the construction of a temporary port to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid to Gaza has highlighted tensions in his administration as he blocks the supply of US weaponry for Israel’s military operation against Hamas without conditions.

The United States is, in a sense, on both sides of the war, arming the Israelis and trying to care for those who are injured as a result. Mr. Biden has grown increasingly frustrated as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel defies the president’s pleas to do more to protect civilians in Gaza, going further in expressing that exasperation during and after his State of the Union address speech last week. But Mr. Biden remains opposed to cutting off munitions or using them to influence the fighting.

“You can’t have a policy where you simultaneously give aid and give Israel the weapons to bomb the food trucks,” Rep. Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said in an interview the day after the speech. “There is an inherent contradiction in that. And I think the administration must match the genuine empathy and moral concern that emerged last night for the lives of Palestinian citizens with real accountability for Netanyahu and the far-right government there.”

The newly launched American-led humanitarian air and sea campaign follows the failure to get sufficient supplies to Gaza by land and represents a sharp reversal by the government. Until now, U.S. officials had eschewed such methods as impractical, concluding that they would not provide supplies on the same scale as a functional land route and would be complicated in many ways.

Airdrops are actually dangerous, as became clear Friday when at least five Palestinians were killed by falling aid packages, and they can create chaotic, dangerous situations without a stable distribution system on the ground. Construction of a temporary floating pier will take 30 to 60 days, if not longer, according to officials and could pose risks to those involved, although Mr. Biden has determined it will be built offshore with no Americans on the ground .

But the government changed course after more than 100 people were killed and hundreds injured last month when a crowd gathered around a convoy of aid trucks and the Israeli army opened fire. A senior U.S. official who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations called the disaster a turning point for the administration’s thinking.

The official said aerial videos of the episode showed the desperation of Gaza’s citizens. Although Israeli officials had hoped that the video’s release might exonerate their troops by showing a mob gone wrong, the official said it instead exposed conditions so dire that people gathered at 4:30 a.m. would rush in a convoy.

Critics said the supplies now floating down by parachute barely meet needs and only highlight the moral conflict in Biden’s approach to the war, which began when an Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel and provoked an Israeli response. which has cost the lives of more than 30,000 people in Gaza.

“It doesn’t make sense,” said Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine-Israel program at the Arab Center in Washington. “It’s like showing up at a five-alarm fire with a cup of water while feeding fuel to the arsonist. The government is trying to address a political problem, namely the option of supporting this horrific war with these cosmetic measures aimed at defusing the anger of voters.”

Israelis and their supporters reject this logic. “Why are they facing each other?” said Eyal Hulata, who served as national security adviser to former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. “The message is – and I strongly support Biden – that he supports the elimination of Hamas, which is the source and cause of all these atrocities, while at the same time putting great emphasis on helping the civilian population of Gaza. .”

“People who say there is a contradiction are not actually distinguishing between Gazans and Hamas,” he added. “We make a distinction between Gazans and Hamas.”

White House officials have refused to be drawn into a public discussion of the thorny questions raised by cutting off aid to the same people trying to escape American-supplied weapons.

“We have been very, very clear about our concerns about the humanitarian situation there and how unacceptable it is that so many people are in such dire need,” John F. Kirby, a national security communications adviser to the president, told reporters at The Washington Post . New York Times last week.

Mr. Biden has strongly supported Israel’s right to defend itself and retaliate for the terrorist attack. He has been criticized by some in his own party for failing to show commensurate empathy for Palestinian civilians, many of whom were left destitute and displaced by the destruction of their coastal enclave.

During his State of the Union address On Thursday, however, he went further than before in lamenting the suffering. The president did not change policy, but his tone and emphasis represented an evolution of his public message.

“This war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined,” Biden told a national spokesperson. audience. “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands of innocents, women and children. Girls and boys have also been orphaned. Nearly two million more Palestinians are being bombed or displaced. Houses destroyed, neighborhoods in ruins, cities in ruins. Families without food, water and medicine. It’s heartbreaking.”

The president went even further in a conversation after the House speech with Senator Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat who urged him to “keep pushing Netanyahu,” known by the nickname Bibi.

“I told him, Bibi — and don’t repeat this — but, ‘You and I are going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting,’” Mr. Biden explained in comments to the senator. captured on a microphone.

After an aide whispered in his ear, Mr. Biden acknowledged that he had been overheard — but seemed perfectly content to let his irritation be known. “I’m on a hot mic here,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Bennet. “Good. That’s good.”

The change in tone did not go unnoticed. “There was a recognition among progressives that this represents a change in language by the president and that language matters,” said Mr. Khanna, who during the speech exchanged texts with Arab Americans in Michigan, where anger at the president was particularly heated. “He is becoming more and more famous for it.”

Friction has increased especially over humanitarian aid. United Nations officials have warned that more than 570,000 Gazans face “catastrophic levels of deprivation and hunger‘ and that ‘if nothing changes, there is a threat of famine in northern Gaza.’ Before the war began, Gaza relied on 500 truckloads of aid a day, according to the World Food Program it is now down to 150 and needs to double that to meet some of the comic’s basic needs.

The senior US official said Israel’s strategy during the conflict was to let in just enough aid to avoid famine and nothing more. But in recent weeks, several factors have threatened to push conditions below that threshold, including Israeli protesters who have blocked aid convoys from leaving Israel on the grounds that the aid benefits Hamas and delays the release of the Israeli hostages. A state of virtual anarchy within Gaza has also made efficient distribution virtually impossible. One result is that more and more malnourished babies are showing up in Gaza’s few functioning hospitals.

The official said that while air-dropped meal packages would most likely make only a marginal difference, Mr. Biden’s plan for a floating pier could — eventually — have a substantial effect on conditions in Gaza.

That’s why U.S. officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, have been adamant in recent days that Israel facilitate more aid to the area without further delay.

The official added that Israeli leaders may have expected that an agreement to release some hostages and pause their military campaign would be reached by Ramadan, which is expected to start on Sunday. That would have allowed for a large influx of aid via trucks and prevented Netanyahu from making tough political concessions in a domestic environment where many Israelis oppose sending more food to where the Oct. 7 attack originated.

But David Miliband, the chairman of the International Rescue Committee, said on Friday that air drops and a pier were “last resorts” that were “expensive and risky” without solving the underlying problem.

“None of this should distract from the material evidence that only a ceasefire will provide the civil protection, aid flows, infrastructure rehabilitation and public health measures that are so desperately needed,” he said. “The fourth and fifth best solutions should not be normalized as effective alternatives to better solutions.”