A Cold Hard Truth
It pains me to say this but Joe Biden is doing it all wrong.
As a staunch Democrat and Joe Biden supporter, I try and give the man the benefit of the doubt. But recent events in the foreign policy arena have caused me to second-guess our Commander-in-Chief. While I know it can be complicated to balance multiple relationships with friends and foes alike, the simple truth is that Joe Biden is making some horrible decisions. And they are awful decisions because they lead to such a clear and obvious conclusion. No matter how to slice it, Joe Biden is failing on a fundamental level to understand the situation. It shouldn't be this difficult and yet time and time again there can be no doubt about the difficult conclusion I have reached:
Joe Biden sucks at genocide.
He really does. After all, this is all we've heard for 7 months from tens of thousands of youthful protestors. "Genocide Joe" they've been calling him. Interrupting college campuses and graduations. Injecting themselves at local town and city council meetings. Stopping traffic and protesting outside politicians' homes. These protestors continue to share how Joe Biden is culpable in the deaths of thousands of innocent Gazans with the intent of wiping out all 5 million Palestinians. All part of his monomaniacal plan, they've been saying. Siding with Israel to annihilate the Palestinian people. Never before has an American president been so heavily involved in the genocide of a foreign people. What Joe Biden is doing is completely unprecedented.
Maybe that's why he's doing it so poorly. After all, if Joe Biden was the person the protestors imagined him to be, then surely he would want the most quick and efficient methods of eliminating the entire Palestinian population. So it seems a bit perplexing about how he has conducted his genocide as many of his actions have actually had the opposite effect of mass murder. Over the past 7 months, Joe Biden has:
-Sent $100 million in aid to Gaza on October 18
-Helped secure a four-day ceasefire during which 50 hostages were released by Hamas on November 23
-Added an additional $53 million in aid to Gaza on February 27
-With Jordan, had the U.S. military airdrop 38,000 meals into Gaza on March 2
-Began construction on a pier o support aid deliveries off the coast of Gaza on March 8
-Convinced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to open 3 aid corridors on April 3
-Warned Netanyahu against a full-scale Rafah offensive on May 6
-Threatened to withhold bombs and artillery shells from Israel on May 9
-Helped transport over 1 million pounds of aid to Gaza via the pier through May 23
And now from this past week, Joe Biden has dared to unveil a proposal to end the war entirely. From BBC News:
US President Joe Biden has urged Hamas to accept a new Israeli proposal to end the conflict in Gaza, saying that "it's time for this war to end".
The three-part proposal would begin with a six-week ceasefire in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would withdraw from populated areas of Gaza.
There would also be a "surge" of humanitarian aid, as well as an exchange of some hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
The deal would eventually lead to a permanent "cessation of hostilities" and a major reconstruction plan for Gaza.
Hamas said it views the proposal "positively".
Speaking at the White House on Friday, Mr Biden said that the first phase of the proposed plan would include a "full and complete ceasefire", the withdrawal of IDF forces from populated areas and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.
"This is truly a decisive moment," he said. "Hamas says it wants a ceasefire. This deal is an opportunity to prove whether they really mean it."
The ceasefire, he added, would allow more humanitarian aid to reach the beleaguered territory, with "600 trucks carrying aid into Gaza every single day".
The second phase would see all remaining living hostages returned, including male soldiers. The ceasefire would then become "the cessation of hostilities, permanently."
He's just so bad at this genocide stuff.
First the humanitarian aid. Then the hostage release. Then the construction of the pier to streamline humanitarian corridors. Then the ongoing efforts at de-escalation. Now Joe Biden has the gall to try and end the war entirely.
It's almost as if he doesn't want to commit genocide at all.
But how can that be? How can Joe Biden actually be for peace when so much of what we've been hearing on college campuses has been about him actively supporting the annihilation of the Palestinian people? If this is Joe Biden's attempt at genocide, then why is he so bad at it?
Bear with me now. Maybe, Joe Biden was never actually for genocide. Maybe Joe Biden immediately saw the impact of the terrorist attack and Israel's subsequent invasion and knew that innocent lives would be placed in harm's way. Maybe he knew that America had a longstanding commitment to the safety and security of Israel while also understanding that innocent civilians would be caught in the crossfire on any sort of ground invasion into Gaza and Rafah. Maybe he knew that even while it would cost him votes in the presidential primary, he had to continue to do the right thing and support Israel in its efforts to free over 100 hostages that still remain behind enemy lines. Maybe, just maybe, Joe Biden knew all this and he knew that he would take a hit politically even though he was doing the right thing.
So while these protestors were screaming "Genocide Joe!" from their $500 REI tents, Joe Biden was working around the clock to minimize civilian casualties in a war started via a Hamas terrorist attack. He has singlehandedly been keeping Benjamin Netanyahu from trying to act on his worst impulses, impulses that would cause tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians to lose their lives. Joe Biden has worked to deliver aid and create humanitarian aid infrastructure in one of the world's most challenging regions. And, as of this past week, he now has proposed a legitimate plan to end the war, thereby preventing any future civilian casualties. All told, there can be zero doubt that Joe Biden has stopped rather than caused countless deaths among the Palestinian people.
But I guess "Heroic Joe" doesn't have the same ring now, does it?