LOS ANGELES.–President Joe Biden, 81, showed why he’s not fit as commander-in-chief sending mixed messages to Israel, holding some inconsequential arms shipments to apparently signal he wants Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt his Rafah operation. Netanyahu can’t liberate Gaza from its Hamas stranglehold without neutralizing remaining military battalions and leadership holed up in Gaza’s military tunnel system. But Biden schizophrenic messaging harms his 2024 campaign, doing very little to placate the Democrat Party’s radical fringe that holds sympathies for Palestinians. Any rational analysis of the Gaza situation recognizes that Gaza has no future with Hamas in charge of the Mediterranean territory once controlled by Egypt since 1920 when the Ottoman Empire was broken up in the Treaty of Sevres. Biden’s power struggle with Netanyahu is counterproductive.
Biden likes the play good-cop, bad-cop with Netanyahu, thinking, at least for his confused strategists, that it placates Muslim voters in battleground states. But airing dirty laundry with Israel only infuriates the Republican Party, re-energizes talk of impeachment. Remember former President Donald Trump, 77, was impeached by 84-year-old former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for daring to withhold funds from Ukraine’s 46-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky. Biden now withholds ammunition from Israel, after granting Tel Aviv $28 billion April 20 in the $95 billion foreign aid bill that handed Zelensky $61 billion without any restrictions. Voters watch carefully Biden’s indecisiveness, wanting Israel to finish the job in Gaza but trying to stop the necessary Rafah operation designed to root out remaining Hamas military capability.
Public relations games played between White House strategists and Israel antagonize voters but have no practical significance to the Rafah operation in Gaza. Hamas wants Israel to stop its operation, accept unrealistic terms for a ceasefire for the purpose of allowing it to remain in power. White House officials know that Gaza has no future without eliminating Hamas and setting up a new temporary government. “The army has munitions for the mission it plans, and for the missions in Rafah too—we have what we need,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagan, dismissing the maelstrom seen on CNN, MSNBC, New York Time and Washington Post, all more concerned with domestic politics than anything else. White House officials pander to the U.N. and global community concerned about remaining 1 million residents in Rafah and growing prospects of famine and intolerable living conditions.
Hamas’s leader-and-mastermind Yahya Sinwar to the Oct. 7 massacre that raped, tortured and killed 1,200 Israelis, largely teenage girls at a Negev Desert music festival, and seized 250 hostages, is holed up in Rafah’s underground tunnel system. Israeli Defense Forces [IDF] estimate that four battalions of armed Hamas fighters are still in Rafah awaiting the final battle with the IDF. Negotiations on a temporary ceasefire have all but collapsed in Cairo, largely because Hamas offered to exchange Israeli corpses for healthy Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. How anyone can think that Hamas is serious about a ceasefire is anyone’s guess. Hamas looks to survive the IDF onslaught that has put Gaza in ruins and intends to wipe out the 1987 terror group with only one purpose: Destruction of Israel. Hamas uses its propaganda machine to turn U.S. and world opinion against Israel.
When you consider the over $100 billion given to Gaza by various donors, like the oil-rich Gulf State over the 17 years of Hamas rule, the cash has gone missing, plundered by Hamas officials now living in luxury in places like Doha, Qatar and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Gulf State donors are reluctant to start any rebuilding effort in Gaza with Hamas continuing to plunder the Gaza coffers. Hamas’s chief ceasefire negotiators, Ismail Haniyeh, Khaled Meshaal and Abu Marzouk, are all billionaires living in Doha. Yet no one in the global press mentions a thing about the widespread Hamas corruption, now looking to survive another day. Sinwar boasted after the Oct. 7 ambush how easy it was to attack Israel’s border yet they now face extinction with the IDF getting closer to its final Rafah operation. Everyone wants to normalize the situation in Gaza but it can’t happen until Hamas is gone.
If Arab state wanted to play a constructive role in ceasefire and peace talks, they would all tell Hamas that they must accept exile deals and leave Gaza. No one wants Hamas to remain in Gaza or have access to any donor funds that could start pouring in once the war is over. Israel doesn’t oppose the U.N.’s humanitarian operations to bring food and medicine to Gaza. Israel wants to finish the job to rid Hamas in Gaza so that ordinary Palestinians can have a future, one with adequate supplies of water and electricity. With most the donor cash going for Hamas weapons and into the pockets of corrupt leaders, there’s no way Hamas can continue ruling the Gaza Strip. Only Israel has motivation to continue to make the sacrifices to end Hamas rule in Gaza. No other country, so far, including the U.S., has told Hamas to leave the Gaza Strip, a necessary step forward.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
