President Biden’s national security adviser said on Monday that while the United States was committed to Israel’s defense, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government had still failed to provide the White House with a plan for moving nearly a million Gazans safely out of Rafah before any invasion of the city.In a lengthy presentation to reporters, the adviser, Jake Sullivan, also said Israel had yet to “connect their military operations” to a political plan for the future governance of the Palestinian territory.
But the US' own statements on what it wants to see contradict each other:
More than seven months into the Israel-Hamas war, the Biden administration’s top priority is to try and secure a hostage deal. This would commence a weeks-long truce, but Washington’s goal is for that pause to be turned permanent.“If we can get a ceasefire, we can get something more enduring and then maybe end the conflict,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said this month.What appears less clear, though, is how pushing for this ceasefire squares with another US commitment, which is to eliminate the threat of Hamas.“An enduring defeat of Hamas certainly remains the Israeli goal, and we share that goal with it,” Kirby said last week.The two objectives seem to clash, given that a temporary-turned-permanent deal with Hamas would ostensibly leave the terror group standing in Gaza.
And the US plan?
“What we are trying to do is advance a vision where Hamas would be marginalized, while Israel would be stronger through improved relations with its Arab neighbors,” the official explained. “By doing that, we are able to eliminate the threat of Hamas without having to continue the war indefinitely.”“It’s a years-long process, and it will require Israeli buy-in, but the alternative is a never-ending cycle of violence that the Israelis could be left alone to deal with,” a second US official said, referencing the danger of waning international support.The four sources described an international effort to support the re-deployment of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the Gaza Strip.They recognized that the PA is not currently in a position to immediately assume security — let alone governing — responsibilities in Gaza.The US along with its Arab and European partners are not deterred, though, and are working to establish mechanisms for a reformed PA to return to the Strip.
So let's get this straight. The US is against Israel destroying Hamas because it is not a realistic goal, but somehow getting the PA to rule Gaza, which they admit would take years at best, is more realistic?
The most recent PCPSR pol shows that most Palestinians - including in the West Bank - want to see Hamas control Gaza, not the PA.
So the US is pushing a plan that Palestinians do not want. How realistic!
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Stop talking about solutions. Talk about the least bad of bad scenarios. And while another occupation of Gaza by Israel would be awful and something no one wants, the alternatives are even worse or pipe dreams.
The West is trying to leverage Hamas atrocities into creating a Palestinian state. But a Palestinian state would be a disaster for Israel, for Palestinians themselves and for the world. They have no path for a state because Palestinian nationalism was never about building a state but destroying one. 30 years after Oslo, between the repeated refusal to accept a state that was offer to them, through the second intifada, wars in Gaza, continued corruption from Palestinian leaders and high Palestinian support of terrorism including October 7, this is pretty obvious.
But the West believes in the religion of the two state solution. There's no realistic plan there either for the day after, but for some reason that doesn't require a plan.
Israel does need to ensure that civilians in Rafah have food and medical help. It is trying to do that. It is Egypt that is withholding aid, not Israel - and no one says a word against that.
The hypocrisy stinks to high heaven.
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