Benjamin Netanyahu Proved Joe Biden a Liar

The line repeated by Joe Biden and all his Democratic allies supporting Israel in its genocide of Gaza was that this could all end tomorrow if Hamas released the Israeli hostages taken in its October 7th attack. Just last week, the White House released a readout of President Biden’s call with Amir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar that made his (naïve) belief very clear on this subject.

He urged Amir Tamim to exert all efforts to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas as this is now the only obstacle to an immediate ceasefire and relief for the people of Gaza.

To anyone with a brain that hasn’t been caved in by partisan politics or the depravity of life inside the American State Department, it has been clear that Benjamin Netanyahu is not that concerned about the welfare of the hostages taken in Hamas’s October 7th attack.

Israeli soldiers shot hostages waving a white flag, and the American bombs Netanyahu is dropping on Gaza have killed hostages too. Someone trying to save lives would be conducting a more surgical operation that wasn’t centered around relentlessly bombing the hostages’ captors. Where does Joe Biden think the hostages are being held?

The fairy tale that Netanyahu just wanted to bring the hostages home has now been completely destroyed by Netanyahu himself.

A ceasefire deal in exchange for hostages has been at the center of peace negotiations in Egypt. Netanyahu hoped that Hamas would reject it, and when they didn’t, he tried to sabotage it. He has since doubled down on rejecting the theoretical framework of a hostages for ceasefire deal.

If you’re wondering what the next AIPAC-approved line out of Democratic partisans will be, Netanyahu is now saying that “Ending the war, and leaving Hamas intact — the State of Israel cannot accept that.”

It’s really something how the powerful antisemites in American politics and media have let Netanyahu turn a relatively small fighting force in one of the poorest parts of the world into a big baddie. It’s like these self-appointed experts on Judaism have never heard of the actual Iranian-backed militia in the region presenting a far bigger threat to Israel.

One of the more shocking things about the October 7th attack was that it was executed on a scale unlike anything Hamas had demonstrated the capacity to do before, and it’s not like their capabilities were considerably enhanced. Israel sacked two officers and formally reprimanded senior commanders who helped oversee the greatest intelligence failure in Israel’s history. Polls repeatedly show that Israelis place some blame on Netanyahu for the attacks. There are thousands of Israelis showing up every weekend to protest the government (are those protests antisemitic too?).

Joe Biden has demonstrated more unwavering support for Netanyahu than Israeli citizens have. There are plenty of examples throughout history of how the American government prefers brutal authoritarian regimes to democracies because one person is easier to control than many, and Israel’s autocrat is the chicken of this longstanding anti-democratic policy coming home to roost.

Allowing Hamas to be portrayed as this supreme evil is one of the ways Netanyahu keeps this assault on civilians going and distracts from how this failure has threatened his seat of power. He can point to Hamas and say they’re an existential threat to Israel, even if the reality is that he’s the greatest existential the Israeli state has ever faced, and all his servants in his American State Department will still try to muck up reality while they run cover for his genocide.

We know this dynamic of the American government feeling the need to run a “narrative” cover for Israeli war crimes is true because Secretary of State Anthony Blinken practically said so this weekend. Mitt Romney added that the Tik Tok ban in Congress was spurred by young people seeing atrocities committed against Palestinians first-hand without our empire’s spin on it. Romney even repeated the “hostages for a ceasefire” propaganda American elites have been duped into repeating.

As I write this, the Israeli army is crossing yet another one of Joe Biden’s red lines by invading Rafah and issuing an evacuation order to parts of this city housing over a million refugees fleeing Israel and America’s assault. Last week, Biden finally put a hold on a shipment of ammunition to Israel, and his National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan previously said that invading Rafah would be a “mistake.” If Biden doesn’t abandon Bibi now, he never will.