Biden’s early certitude on Israel gives way to the complexities and casualties of a brutal war

WASHINGTON – In the early days and hours after the horrific Hamas attack on Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, President Joe Biden spoke with stark declarations and unqualified make stronger for the longtime U.S. best friend.

Now, a month on, that unambiguous backing has given way to the complexities and haunting casualties of the war, and the Biden management is imploring Israel to rein in some of its ways to ease civilian struggling in Gaza.

As condemnation of the war has grown round the global, stoking anti-Israel sentiment, the president may be confronting the limits of the U.S. skill to direct the consequence — no longer simplest about the war, however what comes after it.

“There’s no going back to the status quo as it stood on October the 6th,” Biden stated 3 weeks after the assault. But even though Israel is a hit in crippling or removing Hamas, there will even want to be a shift in Washington, the place successive U.S. administrations have sought to arrange the Middle East war and the place the political will has been missing to devise techniques to finish it.

And but the trail ahead is unsure, at absolute best. “It’s entirely unclear if there is a ‘morning after,’” stated Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. He famous this might be “an extended period of violence at a different scale for many, many months or years to come.”

“But if there is something possible, they can’t just put a plan on the table,“ he added. “They have to take new American positions of their own, that are transformative, that are different, that are like something we have not seen.”

Telhami stated after his staunch make stronger for Israel, the president would want to take similarly dramatic steps to safe buy-in from Palestinians to result in a political answer to the war, beginning with reining in Israeli settlements in the West Bank that Palestinians view as infringing on their long run state.

In fresh weeks, U.S. officers have held inside discussions and talks with allies on post-Hamas governance in Gaza, and resurrected communicate of running towards a two state resolution, with, as Biden expressed Sunday to Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, a “future Palestinian state where Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side with equal measures of stability and dignity.”

Yet there was little growth on how to get there, and some in the Biden management have grown increasingly more fearful that the mounting loss of life toll in Gaza will make that intention much more tricky.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who remaining week seemed to criticize Israel for no longer doing sufficient to reduce hurt to civilians amongst whom Hamas has sought safe haven, has referred to as for a go back to unified Palestinian governance over the West Bank and Gaza underneath the beleaguered Palestinian Authority. The the world over known crew misplaced regulate over Gaza to Hamas in 2007, and is considered skeptically amongst its personal populace for perceived cooperation with Israel.

Jake Sullivan, Biden’s nationwide safety adviser, on Sunday went additional, laying out a imaginative and prescient of what the U.S. sees as a trail ahead, however one that also has no buy-in from key gamers in the area.

In an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Sullivan stated that “the basic principles of the way forward are straightforward.” That trail, he stated, incorporated “no reoccupation of Gaza, no forcible displacement of the Palestinian people. Gaza can never be used as a base for terrorism in the future and Gaza’s territory should not be reduced.”

The Palestinian Authority has overtly brushed aside that perception. “We are not going to go to Gaza on an Israeli military tank,” Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh informed PBS just lately.

“The Palestinian Authority is saying it doesn’t want to take on the task that the Biden administration is pushing unless it gets some kind of real commitment to a major diplomatic initiative leading to a two-state outcome,” said Nathan Brown, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University.

Within the Democratic Party, there are also clear signs of discord. Nearly half of Democrats disapprove of how President Joe Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research — showing a deep divide within his party over the war.

In Congress, so far there is no consensus about Biden’s proposal to pass an aid package that includes assistance to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, and additional money to address issues at the southern border of the U.S.

There are also emerging signs of division between the U.S. and Israeli positions on the war’s endgame, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisting that Israel will retain security control over Gaza for the long term, a stance the White House has rejected, and ruling out alternatives like an international monitoring force.

“The only force right now that can guarantee that Hamas, that terrorism is not – does not reappear and take over Gaza, again, is the Israeli military,” Netanyahu informed NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “So overall, military responsibility will have to be in Israel.”

And in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union,” Netanyahu appeared to rule out returning Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, saying whatever group takes over must “demilitarize” and “de-radicalize Gaza.”

“There has to be a reconstructed civilian authority,” he said of the Palestinian Authority. “There has to be something else.”

More than 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, were killed when Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on Israeli border communities, in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. Nearly 240 — including children and the elderly — remain captive in Gaza, Israeli officials say. Israel’s war to “destroy” Hamas in Gaza has killed over 11,000, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says, though it doesn’t differentiate between civilians and fighters. The U.S. believes thousands of women and children are among the dead.

Until Hamas’ attack, Biden’s administration had largely relegated the region on the back burner, as it focused first on a pivot to Asia then on responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Now, Biden faces a challenge that has splintered his political support at home and the unity of U.S. allies abroad.

“Clearly, Israel has the military ability to take out Hamas,” stated Senate Intelligence committee chairman Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on “Fox News Sunday.” “But this is also a battle about hearts and minds — hearts and minds in terms of maintaining support for Israel in this country, in the world and in the region.”