For Biden, ending Israel’s mass murder in Gaza is a ‘non-starter’

As Palestinians face mass starvation and new ethnic cleansing in Rafah, the White House rejects even token humanitarian gestures.

(Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty Images)

At the White House last week, President Biden claimed to have concerns about Israeli plans for a ground invasion of Rafah, the southern Gaza area where more than one million Palestinians have fled. In the process, he committed a gaffe that revealed his actual stance.

“Our military operation in Rafah,” Biden began, before correcting himself.  “Their — the major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan... for ensuring the safety and support of more than one million people sheltering there. They need to be protected.”

Although unintentional, Biden was accurate to refer to an Israeli military operation in Gaza in the possessive form. Every Israeli atrocity in Gaza is committed with US support. Accordingly, within 24 hours, the White House made clear that despite Biden’s words of caution, only Israel’s mass murder campaign will remain protected.

According to three US officials, the Biden administration “is not planning to punish Israel if it launches a military campaign in Rafah without ensuring civilian safety,” Politico reports. Therefore, “no reprimand plans are in the works, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences.” In another likely sign that Biden supports an Israeli assault, its allied regime in Egypt – a US client state -- is now building an 8-square-mile walled enclosure that would cage fleeing refugees on its side of the Rafah border.

Biden’s spokespeople have also relayed that Israel has his green light to harm Rafah’s civilians.

“We’re going to continue to support Israel,” John Kirby said at the White House. “And we’re going to continue to make sure they have the tools and the capabilities to do that.” Asked directly if the US would punish Israel if it attacked Rafah without the Biden-demanded “credible plan” for civilian safety, Kirby responded: “I’m not going to get into a hypothetical game.”

To supply Israel with the proper “tools,” the US is rushing a new shipment of at least 1,000 bombs and related munitions. According to US intelligence officials, Israel has used about half the 21,000 bombs supplied by the US since the Oct. 7^th attack. Israel's remaining stockpile would be enough for 19 more weeks -- but just days if war breaks out with Hezbollah on the northern border.

Israel’s dependence on US weaponry gives the White House instrumental leverage to impose conditions on its conduct – including demanding an end to the Gaza assault. But instead of using that influence, this latest transfer is part of “a broader effort by the Biden administration to speed the flow of weapons to Israel,” the Wall Street Journal observes.

To protect that speedy effort, the White House is pledging to veto yet another United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. The Algerian-proposed measure, UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield declared on Sunday, “will not be adopted.”

The US is instead proposing a six-week ceasefire, which, Thomas-Greenfield said, could then be used to take “the steps to build a more enduring peace.” But in pretending that Hamas would ever release all of its captives in exchange for a “pause,” the US is only signaling its commitment to enduring genocide. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made this clear earlier this month when he claimed that Hamas’ latest proposal – which centers on a permanent ceasefire – contained what are “clearly nonstarters.” 

Blinken did not bother to specify what those “clear” nonstarters are. By contrast, when it comes to Israel’s military conduct, the Biden administration maintains a policy of having no “red lines”, as the murderous attack on one of Gaza’s largest and last functional hospitals, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, newly demonstrates.

The Biden administration’s commitment to Israeli savagery is so extreme that it cannot even secure the token amounts of aid that it regularly invokes to profess its commitment to Palestinian well-being.

As Gaza’s civilians face mass starvation, the Israeli government is holding up a shipment of one month’s supply of flour, rice, chickpeas and cooking oil sent from Turkey at the port of Ashdod. Israel’s stated pretext is that the intended recipient, UNRWA -- the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees – employs a handful of staffers whom Israel claims participated in the Oct. 7^th attack. This cynical campaign, endorsed by the Biden administration, has led the US and its allies to suspend funding and an Israeli bank to freeze UNRWA’s account, making the agency’s work far more difficult. The Senate’s recently approved, White House-endorsed “foreign aid” bill, which contains more than $14 billion for Israel, explicitly bars any further US funding for UNRWA.

Israel also claims that Hamas has been diverting UN aid, a claim that even the Biden administration’s envoy for humanitarian issues in Gaza, David Satterfield, has rejected. “No Israeli official has come to me, come to the administration with specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance delivered by the UN in the center of the south of Gaza,” Satterfield says. Israel has meanwhile attacked Gazan police escorts of UN aid deliveries, leaving them without the proper security to continue.

After helping Israel block vital aid as part of its longtime goal of destroying UNRWA, the White House now claims to be a helpless bystander as Palestinian civilians face increased deprivation as a result. “I wish I could tell you that that flour is moving in, but I can’t do that right now,” Kirby, the White House spokesperson, told reporters last week. “As a general principle, we support the work that UNRWA does,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller added. But as evidenced by its actions, a higher US principle is to support Israeli sadism.

Staunchly committed to Israel’s mass murder campaign, the White House can only continue to offer face-saving leaks that whitewash its role.

Citing sources familiar with “private conversations,” NBC News reports that Biden “has been venting his frustration... over his inability to persuade Israel to change its military tactics in the Gaza Strip.” Biden is said to be particularly unnerved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is described as the “primary obstacle.” The US president is reportedly so upset with his Israeli counterpart that he even refers to him as “this guy,” and, worse, an “asshole.”

Based on this reported acrimony, NBC News concludes that “the dynamic between the two leaders could be nearing an inflection point.” Yet the same article includes a caveat that is standard for all accounts of US-Israeli relations since Oct. 7^th: nothing will change. As NBC puts it, “even as Biden has escalated his rhetoric, he is not yet prepared to make significant policy changes, officials said. He and his aides continue to believe his approach of unequivocally supporting Israel is the right one.”

With Biden’s unequivocal support, Netanyahu has vowed to proceed with the Rafah assault in the face of global pressure. “Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are basically telling us: Lose the war,” Netanyahu said on Saturday. “It’s true that there’s a lot of opposition abroad, but this is exactly the moment that we need to say that we won’t be doing a half or a third of the job.”

As he moves closer to fulfilling the job of ethnic cleansing southern Gaza, Netanyahu can credit the only global constituency that matters to him: the Biden administration and its bipartisan allies in Congress. Across party lines, Washington is affirming that for the world’s most powerful state, even the most minimal gestures to protect starving, displaced, and defenseless Palestinians is a clear non-starter.