Joe Biden may not be working very hard in recent days with the White House calling a “lid” on the day’s work before noon on Monday. But he was propped up on Tuesday for a ten-minute address to the nation to show that he was on top of things and the American people had nothing to worry about.
Biden hates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but domestic politics and U.S. standing in the world demanded that the president give a full-throated defense of Israel and condemn Hamas in unflinching terms.
Long-time New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker said the speech “was one of the sharpest, even angriest condemnations of terrorism in Israel that I’ve ever heard from an American president in covering the White House since the 1990s. Biden offered no equivocation and made no effort to urge restraints on Israel’s response. He wanted to make sure there was no daylight between him and Israel at this time.”
“In this moment, we must be crystal clear,” Biden said. “We stand with Israel. We stand with Israel.”
Biden, sensing the mood of the county, offered no equivocations, no mealy-mouthed pleas for “balance” or “proportional response.” The horror of Kfar Aza and other bloody place names that will forever stain the pages of the history of the Jewish State have banished requests for diplomacy to end the conflict.
The civilized world cannot afford to allow Hamas to exist, and Israel will probably not stop the war until it can be assured that the terrorists will never be able to mount such an attack ever again. For now, Biden seems content to allow Israel to have its way with Hamas.
Related: Now Hamas Wants a Truce. Here’s Why Israel Shouldn’t Give Them One.
“There are moments in this life when pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on the world,” Biden said, with Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken standing behind him. “The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend.”
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said after the speech that 20 Americans were missing in Israel, presumed to be dead or kidnapped. Biden announced during the speech that 14 Americans had been killed with the death toll expected to rise as the grim task of working through the massacred bodies will last at least a couple of weeks.
Biden disclosed that Americans are among those taken hostage by Hamas fighters. He did not specify how many, but said that he has directed U.S. officials to offer their expertise in assisting Israel’s efforts to free the hostages.
“As president,” he said, “I have no higher priority than the safety of Americans being held hostage around the world.”
Biden made a passing reference to the dysfunction in Washington: the U.S. House has no speaker at present because of infighting among the majority Republican Party. When Congress returns to work, he said, he would ask members to take “urgent actions to fund the national security requirements of our critical partners.”
“This is not about party or politics,” he said. “It’s about the security of our world.”
Without a speaker, the U.S. House can’t really function. The big question then becomes whether the dozen or so radical right Republicans will put aside their own agenda and unite to elect either Jim Jordan or Steve Scalise or even entertain the possibility of voting to bring Kevin McCarthy back from the dead to lead the House — if only temporarily — if either Jordan or Scalise can’t get enough support.
Israel doesn’t need U.S. soldiers. It does, however, need to replenish its supplies of some critical systems including more interceptors for its Iron Dome missile defense system as well as bombs and missiles for attack planes. For that reason, Congress must act quickly to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself.
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