The Left’s Discomfort with Israel’s War on Hamas Doesn’t Matter

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, December 14, 2023

 

In a revealing admission reflective of progressive activists’ discomfort with the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s defensive war, Vice President Kamala Harris quietly conveyed the ickiness that has overtaken the American Left.

 

Via Politico:

 

Vice President Kamala Harris has been telling colleagues in the administration that she wants the White House to show more concern for the humanitarian damage in Gaza, where Israel is locked in a bloody and prolonged battle with Hamas, according to three people familiar with Harris’ comments. . . .

 

One person close to the vice president’s office said she believes the United States should be “tougher” on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; she has called for being “more forceful at seeking a long-term peace and two-state solution,” this person said.

 

The sentiments Harris expressed behind closed doors are not dissimilar to those insubordinate White House staffers vented in their masked protest against Israel’s conduct outside the executive mansion on Wednesday night. But Israel skeptics on the left aren’t just seeking catharsis. Their advocacy has generated policy and political rhetoric designed to erode — however marginally — America’s support for Israel’s mission.

 

This week, President Joe Biden issued a stark public warning to the Israeli government. Jerusalem can still count on the support of the United States and its European allies, he assured a group of Democratic donors, but “they’re starting to lose that support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place.” The remark was buttressed late Wednesday by a U.S. intelligence assessment provided to reporters that found between 40 and 45 percent of the ordnance Israel has dropped on targets inside Gaza are unguided munitions — scary sounding “dumb bombs.” The assessment gave media outlets like CNN the hook they need to publish articles replete with experts savaging Israel’s inhumane conduct of its war against Hamas terrorists.

 

Administration officials paired this attack on Israel’s campaign with a policy shift that served only to communicate the White House’s displeasure with Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime coalition government: State Department officials have reportedly halted the transfer of over 20,000 M16 rifles to Israel, rescinding approved export licenses to protest “attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the Occupied West Bank,” U.S. officials told Axios.

 

To hear National Security Council spokesman John Kirby tell it, the administration’s behavior makes little sense. In a briefing for reporters, Kirby expounded on the extent of the Israeli government’s efforts to sanitize its campaign against Hamas in Gaza in accordance with the White House’s guidance, sometimes despite added risk to its mission and personnel.

 

Israel moved “into Northern Gaza on the ground in a way that was much smaller than they had previously planned to do,” Kirby said. “They have reduced the number of airstrikes that they’re — that they’re conducting right now as they pursue Hamas terrorists in the South. They have published online maps of places where people can go or not to go [sic]. That’s basically telegraphing your punches, and there’s very few modern militaries in the world that would do that. I don’t know that we would do that.” Additionally, the humanitarian-assistance corridors through which civilians transit out of and aid flows into the Strip are indications of Israel’s commitment to limiting the collateral damage associated with Hamas’s war of choice.

 

Kirby’s admission — one he has made before — that Israel has subordinated its operational goals to humanitarian concerns in a way that exceeds even what the U.S. would condone is certainly true. The IDF exposed its soldiers to unnecessary risks in the effort to capture the Hamas stronghold in Shifa hospital, in stark contrast to how America cleared out an ISIS-occupied hospital in Mosul from the air. Unguided munitions and submunitions are part of America’s arsenal and the U.S. does not hesitate to use them on the battlefield when it makes operational sense to do so. Nor do we have any problem exporting those weapons to our allies and partners abroad, including Ukraine. Speaking of Ukraine, the United States has expressed its concerns with how Kyiv conducts domestic law enforcement, but that has not stopped Washington from exporting weapons platforms and ordnance to Ukraine in the effort to beat back the Russian onslaught. The alleged misconduct of Israeli settlers in the West Bank is just that — a domestic law-enforcement issue that should have little bearing on how the White House views the conduct of Israel’s war against Hamas.

 

And that war has so far been wildly successful. In an interview with Al-Monitor, senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk all but sued for a peace that preserves his terrorist organization’s existence. “A senior Hamas official suggested the Gaza-based militant group would recognize Israel as a step toward ending the long-running divisions between the Palestinian factions,” the report read. “You should follow the official stance,” Marzouk conceded. “The official stance is that the [Palestinian Liberation Organization] has recognized the state of Israel.” That overture may not appeal to Israeli policy-makers, but it is an overture, nonetheless. The remark betrays the terrorist group’s recognition that its days are numbered if the war continues apace.

 

Does the Biden administration recognize that this is the outcome it needs? Does it realize that it has invested American prestige in the speedy and victorious conclusion of Israel’s righteous war, and the failure to secure that outcome with all possible alacrity saps it of its credibility? Does it understand that the double standards it is applying to Israel to appease an unappeasable faction of malcontents on the fringes of the Democratic coalition imperil far more important objectives?

 

The Biden administration is getting wobbly at precisely the wrong moment, and for no discernible reason other than that a loud minority within Biden’s coalition cannot abide its association with Israel’s war. The proper response to this queasiness would be to tell the dissenters to make themselves a chamomile tea and lie down for a spell while the responsible adults in the room advance U.S. interests abroad. The grownups can take it from here.