The new moon that marks the first day of the fasting month of Ramadan has not yet appeared. But it already seems all but certain that Gaza’s Muslims will begin their holy month at war. US President Joe Biden has failed in his repeatedly stated goal of bringing about a ceasefire beforehand – although he does not want to completely give up hope yet. CIA chief Bill Burns is still in the region and continues to advocate for a conclusion to the negotiations, Biden said in an interview with the US broadcaster MSNBC aired on the weekend.
However, Biden also expressed his increasing disappointment by speaking more critically than ever before about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu “is doing more harm to Israel than he is helping Israel,” Biden said. “He needs to pay more attention to the innocent lives that are being lost.” More than 31,000 people have died in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry. “This is the opposite of what Israel stands for,” Biden said. “It’s a serious mistake.” He has been warning Netanyahu for weeks about jeopardizing international support through violent action in Gaza.
Biden spoke of a “red line” with regard to plans to attack the border town of Rafah. Around 1.3 million Palestinians have fled there – from the war in the rest of the Gaza Strip. The USA is demanding a concept from Israel to protect the civilian population that it has not received so far. However, the US President immediately softened his red line in the interview. “I will never leave Israel alone,” Biden said. “There is no red line that would make me stop supplying weapons.” If necessary, Biden even wants to override Netanyahu’s war cabinet and turn directly to the Knesset, the parliament in Jerusalem. At least he answered yes when asked in the interview whether he would consider it. However, he doesn’t seem to want to make any concrete plans.
Biden’s latest comments are part of a series of warning signals from Washington to the Israeli prime minister, although at least one was probably not intended for the ears of the world. After his State of the Union address on Thursday, the president was surrounded by lawmakers in the House chamber with his microphone still running. It picked up on Biden’s remark that he had told “Bibi” that he would hold a “come to Jesus meeting” with him. The expression “coming to Jesus” is a metaphor for moments of enlightenment, of conversion, of insight into a wrong approach. However, applying it to a Jewish Israeli politician has anti-Semitic undertones. The US President justified himself by saying that the phrase was common in Pennsylvania, where he grew up. Netanyahu knows how to understand that; he has known him for 50 years.
However, Netanyahu should also know that there is a lot of campaigning in Biden’s comments. The US president is under pressure from the left wing of the party and from Muslim voters in key swing states over his support for Israel. Primary elections in Michigan and Minnesota made it clear that the movement is strong enough to take decisive votes away from Biden in the November presidential election. Biden denied that. Those who abstained had a variety of reasons for doing so, he said MSNBC.
But he had made the Middle East war an important topic in his State of the Union address. Among other things, he announced the construction of a floating pier off the coast of Gaza through which relief supplies would be delivered to the population at risk of hunger. This can only go into operation in two months at the earliest. And shortly after the primary election in Minnesota, Biden exposed the Israeli prime minister, whom he had refused to invite to the White House for months. Vice President Kamala Harris received his arch-rival Benny Gantz.