President Biden late Wednesday suddenly started talking about a “pause” in Israel’s operation to root Hamas out of Gaza — de facto starting to jump ship even faster than we’d feared.
Worse, the White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken took up the idea: Now it’s a call for multiple, regular “pauses.”
Speculation abounds that Biden’s motive is beyond puerile: Democrats are freaking out because a stand on principle might cost him Michigan (thanks to Arab-American voters) next November.
The White House staff apparently hasn’t thought about how many states he risks losing if he kneecaps one of America’s closest allies in the early stages of its war for survival.
Of course, the official line is that the pauses would simply be to get more hostages (including Americans that Hamas refuses to let leave) out of Gaza, and more relief supplies in.
This is complete nonsense.
For starters, enough relief is already getting in; the only issue is that Hamas won’t let it get where it needs to go, in fact is restricting how much can come in via the Rafah crossing.
And if the terrorists learn that holding onto their hostages can get Biden to make the IDF freeze its assault, that’s exactly what they’ll do.
Such games are why they took the hostages in the first place.
Equally important, the idea of pausing a war is ridiculous — mush a politician (maybe a diplomat) can pretend means something.
Wars don’t come with a “pause” button: One side may opt to reduce the tempo of its operations; that’s it.
And, yes, Biden earlier got the IDF to hold off in one small sector of the front to simplify getting two Americans out — but that was before Israel’s ground offensive got going. Now they’re engaged too deeply to do the same.
Plus, the president is pushing Israel only to put the fight on hold; he’s not even mentioning a demand for Hamas (and Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran’s other proxies) to stop firing missiles and rockets at Israeli civilians for the duration.
Heck, he has yet to demand Hamas release all its American hostages, without delay or excuses — plainly because he’s afraid to threaten any consequences for the terrorists.
Fact is, Biden’s only saying “pause” because he doesn’t dare say “ceasefire” — yet.
He’s too recently on record as explaining (correctly) that any ceasefire is simply a gift to Hamas, allowing it a breather amid the IDF’s assault.
Here’s an idea, Mr. President: Give up on your domestic political goals for the duration of this war.
If that means dropping your re-election plans, so be it.
If you keep playing politics, you’re liable to bring disaster overseas and in the 2024 elections — and go down in history as the worst president ever.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
