No. of Recommendations: 9
I watched the last fifteen minutes of his statement he gave after ending the meeting with Netanyahu. Yes, he's old. Yes, he stuttered or repeated a word here and there. I wish he could have conveyed the message with more energy.
But...
Listen to the message...
In the real sense of the word, he acted as a TRUE friend of Israel. It seems he didn't tell Netanyahu "do what you gotta do, the US is up for anything.." Instead, as he publicly described his purpose,
* he conveyed support for Israeli citizens - who no doubt have SOMEONE in their family affected
* he reiterated efforts the US is taking to keep secondary proxy powers (Iran, Syria, Lebanon, etc.) from further meddling / escalation
* he reiterated military support the US will provide Israel to replenish its air defenses
* he outlined efforts to establish supply paths into Gaza and evacuation paths
* he cautioned Netanyahu about the long-term danger of Israel acting out of rage versus long term strategy
* he reiterated that "Hamas" is not the same as "the Palestinians" and expressed sorrow for the suffering of innocent Palestinians as well
Biden's statement about acting on strategy rather than rage took a great deal of courage to say, not to Netanyahu and the Israelis but to American audiences. Anyone who looks back our America's response to September 11, 2001 and says everything we did was the best tactic we could have adopted and that everything we did SHOULD have been done learned nothing from the $3.4 trillion dollars spent in Afghanistan and Iraq and the 7000+ military and 8000+ contractor deaths in those wars. And that's not counting deaths of Iraqis (295,000) and Afhanis (about 147,000).
Do you think any of America's allies were calling up George Bush on September 12, 2001 and telling him not to confuse what America COULD do with what it SHOULD do? I doubt it. I suspect the leader of every one of our allies called Bush and said "Git 'em!". No thought whatsover to the folly of trying to invade a desert country of scattered tribal klans to install democracy instead of just capturing / killing bin Laden. "Justice" / revenge shall be ours, so Bush thought.
Whether Netanyahu acts on that message is another story. It is interesting to note that even after this attack, Israelis have not forgotten their displeasure with Netanyahu. It seems most Israelis blame the intelligence failure that allowed the attack to occur in the first place and poor military preparedness that allowed areas to go undefended for HOURS squarely on Netanyahu. No "rally 'round the flag" going on whatsoever. More curiously, Biden's popularity among Israelis is higher than Netanyahu's. Maybe that's why Biden felt the lattitude to provide such cautionary support in his private meeting, then state it publicly to the Israeli public.
If more intelligence is dug up to reinforce the finding that the rocket that destroyed the Gaza City hospital was in fact launched from a block of the hospital by a Palestinian militia, the leaders who cancelled the summit thinking the hospital bombing was an Israeli act will find themselves in a very difficult public stance. Unfortunately, it seems likely that any momentum that might have come out of such a meeting has zero chance of being established. The parties involved are all too small-minded to admit mistakes and start over.
WTH
