Report: Biden Gives Netanyahu
‘Private Backing’ for Gaza Ground Invasion
Dave DeCamp / AntiWar.com
(October 18, 2023) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won President Biden’s “private backing” for a ground invasion of Gaza during talks in Israel on Wednesday, The Times of London reported.
The report said Biden told Netanyahu that he remained “fully in support” of Israel’s plans to launch a ground incursion to “eliminate Hamas” despite outrage over the bombing of the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City that Israel is blaming on an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. The US is backing Israel’s side of the story, while Palestinian officials insist an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital.
According to a report from Axios on Wednesday’s talks between Biden and Netanyahu, the primary message Israeli officials expressed to President Biden was that the war in Gaza will take time and will test US support for Israel. Over 3,000 Palestinians have already been killed in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza that started on October 7, and any ground invasion will incur huge civilian casualties.
An Israeli ground invasion of Gaza appeared imminent toward the end of last week when Israel ordered the evacuation of northern Gaza, an area where 1.1 million people live. The Jerusalem Post reported that the incursion was delayed over concerns Hezbollah would open a second front in the north.
The US has deployed two aircraft carrier strike groups and other military assets to “deter” other actors from joining the war, and the White House has discussed the possibility of using military force against Hezbollah if it launches a significant attack on Israel.
The Axios report said that Biden expressed concern to Netanyahu that Hezbollah might join the war beyond the cross-border rocket strikes it has been exchanging with Israel in the north.
State Department Official Resigns Over
Biden’s Support for Israel’s Gaza War
Josh Paul warns US and Israel assaults will “only lead to more and deeper suffering”
An official with the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM) announced his resignation on Wednesday due to President Biden’s full-throated support for Israel’s onslaught in Gaza that came after the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Josh Paul said in a statement on his LinkedIn account that he had worked for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for 11 years. He strongly condemned the Hamas’ attack on Israel, describing it as a “monstrosity of monstrosities,” but said Israel’s response will only make things worse.
“I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people — and is not in the long term American interest. This Administration’s response — and much of Congress’ as well — is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia. That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising,” Paul wrote.
“Blind Support” of Israel
Has Proven “Destructive”
Paul continued to criticize the history of the US’s “blind support” for Israel. “Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides. I fear we are repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer,” he said.
Discussing his time at the PM, Paul said he had made moral compromises but that he had reached his limit. “In my 11 years I have made more moral compromises than I can recall, each heavily, but each with my promise to myself in mind, and intact. I am leaving today because I believe that in our current course with regards to the continued — indeed, expanded and expedited — provision of lethal arms to Israel — I have reached the end of that bargain,” he said.
According to the State Department’s website, the PM is the department’s “principal link” to the Defense Department and “provides policy direction in the areas of international security, security assistance, military operations, defense strategy and plans, and defense trade.”
Paul said he was proud of some work he had done at the PM, including “on pending Administration decisions to transfer lethal weapons to countries that abuse human rights” and involvement in the policy of fueling the Ukraine war.
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