{"id":1608693,"date":"2024-04-13T13:49:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T13:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2024\/04\/biden-netanyahu-gaza-pressure-failure\/"},"modified":"2024-04-13T13:52:10","modified_gmt":"2024-04-13T13:52:10","slug":"bidens-attempt-to-get-tough-on-netanyahu-quietly-failed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/04\/13\/bidens-attempt-to-get-tough-on-netanyahu-quietly-failed\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s Attempt to Get Tough on Netanyahu Quietly Failed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n\n\n\n

Nothing Joe Biden has done to rein in Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s brutality against the people of Gaza has worked. Biden has proven too weak, indecisive, and indulgent of Israel to even induce Netanyahu into making small tweaks to his behavior.<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\n US president Joe Biden listens to a question during a press conference at the White House on April 10, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik \/ Getty Images)\n <\/figcaption> \n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n \n

After six months, a spreading famine<\/a>, the possible outbreak<\/a> of regional war, and more than 33,000 Palestinians killed, President Joe Biden finally acted like the leader of the world\u2019s only superpower, and one on which Israel\u2019s war on Gaza is completely reliant<\/a>. After what the president described as a \u201cvery blunt and straightforward\u201d phone call with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, in which he at long last threatened some \u2014 any \u2014 consequences for Israel\u2019s repeated<\/a>, humiliating<\/a> flouting<\/a> of US requests, the Israeli government seemed to finally budge. Within hours, the Israeli government announced, as per Biden\u2019s demand, that it was immediately opening the Erez crossing and Ashdod port to allow the humanitarian aid it had been blocking to finally flow into the famine-stricken territory.<\/p>\n

The move was bitter vindication for the many voices who had spent months calling on Biden to use the United States\u2019 enormous leverage<\/a> over Israel to, if not end the genocidal<\/a> war it has been waging on Gaza, at the very least minimize its barbarity<\/a>. Others took the opportunity to laud the president\u2019s leadership and toughness, however late it had come.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is as close to a \u2018come to Jesus\u2019 moment as you can get,\u201d Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations told <\/a>Reuters<\/a>. Headlines blared that with Netanyahu quickly and obediently opening the aid corridors, the Israeli leader was \u201cbowing to US pressure<\/a>,\u201d while the president was<\/a> \u201cwatching Netanyahu after their \u2018blunt\u2019 talk.\u201d A CNN report<\/a> on the \u201cpointed phone call\u201d reveled in the details fed to the network by someone close to the president, with Netanyahu allegedly telling him, \u201cJoe, we\u2019re gonna do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Biden wasn\u2019t finished,\u201d the CNN report stated. \u201cThe prime minister must announce the moves that evening, the president insisted.\u201d And as we now know, Netanyahu quickly folded.<\/p>\n

Except that\u2019s not what ended up happening.<\/p>\n

According to Israel\u2019s N12 channel<\/a>, nearly a week later, neither the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the authority in charge of coordinating humanitarian aid, nor officials at the Ashdod port had gotten orders from Netanyahu\u2019s office to do any such thing. In fact, the report stated, Netanyahu seemingly went out of his way to thumb his nose at Biden yet again, appointing three officials opposed to opening the port to the team in charge of humanitarian decision making.<\/p>\n