Joe Biden still thinks it's a legitimate war aim of Israel's to destroy Hamas. At least, he says so publicly.
But since the hostages were released on Friday, Biden's statements on the war have taken a decidedly pacifist turn. He said on Friday that he thinks it's a "worthwhile thought" to condition aid to Israel on limiting civilian casualties.
But Biden said, "I don’t think if I started off with that we would have ever gotten where we are today.”
And where is that, Joe? In fact, Biden has been putting pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza. He never suggests ways that can be done and still "destroy Hamas" as he claims to support. But it's what the hard left wants to hear.
The big worry now is that Biden will try to force an end to the fighting before the job of destroying Hamas is completed. In fact, the IDF is weeks away from accomplishing that goal with more hard fighting in the South yet to be undertaken.
“That’s a difficult task, and I don’t know how long it will take. My expectation and hope is that as we move forward, the rest of the Arab world on the region is also putting pressure on all sides to slow this down to bring this to an end as quickly as we can,” Biden adds.
He's talking out of both sides of his mouth. While agreeing with Israel that Hamas needs to be destroyed he wants to "slow this down to bring this to an end as quickly as we can." A premature end to the fighting would play right into the hands of the terrorists, but Biden is under enormous pressure from his domestic left flank as well as some of our European allies whose own left-wing and domestic Muslim populations are agitating for an end to the fighting.
Joe Biden wants it both ways and very soon, he's going to have to decide which way it will be: destroying Hamas or allowing the terrorists to regroup and repeat their October 7 attack on Israel over and over again.
The civilian death toll has generated international outcry and protests even in the United States, a staunch ally of Israel.
Biden spoke to reporters on Friday while vacationing with his family on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket.
As Biden and his wife, Jill, walked around Nantucket after his remarks, some in the gathered crowd loudly shouted: "Free Palestine!"
Biden said earlier that he had raised civilian casualties with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"I've encouraged the prime minister to focus on trying to reduce the number of casualties while he is attempting to eliminate Hamas, which is a legitimate objective," Biden told reporters.
Some American hostages are expected to be released by Hamas later on Saturday and Biden is hopeful the truce can be extended. That's not likely, as Netanyahu has indicated the war will go on.
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