The US will start airdrops of food and emergency supplies into Gaza in the next few days, Joe Biden has announced, amid UN warnings of famine and after Israeli troops opened fire on Gazans seeking food aid.
The use of airdrops is a spectacular but inefficient way of delivering aid, and Friday’s announcement suggests that Biden had given up on being able to persuade Israel in the near future to coordinate a large-scale ground-based relief effort under the threat of mass starvation across Gaza.
Critics suggested it represented no more than a gesture, which obscured Biden’s reluctance to use US leverage to force Israel to be more cooperative in the delivery of humanitarian aid.
“The loss of life is heartbreaking,” Biden said, making the announcement at the White House at a meeting with Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. “People are so desperate that innocent people got caught in a terrible war unable to feed their families and you saw the response when they tried to get aid in.
“And we need to do more […]
Joe Biden is in a very difficult position. As a long standing supporter of the Empire, he can’t just disavow policies he has be an ardent supporter of for decades. This inadequate response to Israel’s war on Palestine is just a fig leaf to provide cover for those disaffected voters who demonstrated a modicum of protest for Democratic policies during the Michigan Primary. Even sadder for the Democrats, the type of naivete inherent in the electorate as recent as the 1980’s is long gone. The government has taught the populous hard lessons regarding the veracity of statements by officials. As a consequence, these actions will not be believed by the disaffected voter and are likely to backfire on the President. For Joe Biden to have an attack of the truth, and demand Netanyahu stop inflicting his murderous policies upon civilians is most unlikely. Biden doesn’t have the backbone of someone like Reagan who was willing to confront Israeli leadership, because no matter how much you disagreed with Reagan, when he said something you knew he actually meant it.
I totally agree with you, Stephan.