Given the flamboyance with which the White House has broadcast its hostility toward Israel’s conduct in its defensive war against Hamas, we can safely deduce that the administration wants the world to take note of its displeasure. The administration has succeeded in generating attention for itself, but it’s unclear what its strategic objective was beyond that. Joe Biden and his officials have managed only to alienate Israel’s supporters while winning no plaudits from Israel’s reflexive detractors. It’s a strange approach. In fact, if the remarks of National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan are to be taken at face value, it has become a source of internal conflict within the administration.
“When it comes to the issue of the hostage talks, one of the things that I have found somewhat absent from the coverage is that what we are talking about in the first phase is women, elderly, and wounded civilians,” Sullivan said yesterday when pressed for an update on cease-fire negotiations. “A cease-fire is on the table today for six weeks to be built on into something more enduring if Hamas would simply release women, wounded, and elderly. And the fact that they will not do so says a lot to me about Hamas’s regard for innocent Palestinian civilians.”
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