I swear, if you don’t laugh once in a while in politics, you’ll spend all day crying … or screaming. And this story will make us do all three, and not in that particular order.
The Biden administration desperately needs to get Israel to slow down and let Hamas off the hook in Gaza, because … Dearborn, apparently. Benjamin Netanyahu and 82% of Israelis are telling Biden to pound sand, so Biden wants to look for some alternative for the IDF that doesn’t involve the actual destruction of Hamas, at least not before the elections in November.
Their latest idea? Secure a border. No, I am not kidding:
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan touched on this idea on Monday when he announced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accepted a request from US President Joe Biden during their phone call earlier that day to send an inter-agency team to Washington “to hear US concerns about Israel’s current Rafah planning and to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in Rafah and secure the Egypt-Gaza border, without a major ground invasion.”
Elaborating on the alternative approach the Biden administration has in mind, a second senior US official said Washington envisions Israel focusing instead on preventing the smuggling of weapons from Egypt into Gaza through the Philadelphi Corridor.
Say what? Does Biden and his administration now admit that an unsecured border is a national-security risk? Because Texas and a lot other states would be glad to hear this. This administration has spent the last three years and change scoffing at the idea that an uncontrolled border presents any risk at all, and have gone to court several times to preserve their right to not enforce laws that would prevent illegal entries on a massive scale.
Nor is this the only idiocy contained in this proposal. First off, Israel only secures its own borders with Gaza, and has since ending its occupation of the Strip in 2005. In order to secure that Gaza border with Egypt, Israel would have to occupy Gaza once again, and would have to remain in place as long as Hamas remained in Rafah and the rest of Gaza. Not only would that set Israel up for long-term degradation of its forces in Gaza, it would force them to use increasing levels of force to maintain their position against a terror-oriented population.
Next, this is a direct insult to Egypt, which does have responsibility for securing the Philadelphi Corridor. And the Biden administration knows it:
The official avoided blaming the Egyptian government for the smuggling that was partially responsible for Hamas’s re-armament amid successive rounds of conflict with Israel over the past 15 years. However, they said reaching a new arrangement with Cairo and building the necessary infrastructure to cut off the smuggling route would be more critical to the dismantlement of Hamas than a major ground offensive in Rafah.
How long will that take? It will be longer than ‘months,’ to be sure. This proposal would require the IDF to occupy Gaza until it gets completed, if in fact it ever does get completed. Why not let Egypt secure the border and let Israel finish the war Hamas started?
And all the while, let’s not forget that Hamas will remain in Rafah with an estimated four brigades of its fighters/terrorists, and with unknown paths of egress to other parts of Gaza. Even if the IDF can shut down smuggling at the Philadelphi Corridor, Hamas still has large stores of munitions and weaponry, not to mention the hostages and other human shields they can use for guerilla attacks on the IDF.
This proposal makes as much sense as halting the invasion of Germany outside of Berlin and letting the Nazi high command organize its remaining forces. While air-dropping them food and medicine, no less.
In short, this is an unserious proposal by unserious people, which comes as no shock since the very same military geniuses that propose this also authored the craven and disgraceful Kabul Bug-Out, and remain unapologetic for it to this day.
But it’s nice to know they care about border security. Somewhere, anyway. Just not for America.
When the Israelis shoot down this little trial balloon, Biden and his team will blame Netanyahu, because they keep missing the point. Netanyahu’s not driving these decisions — the Israeli people are demanding these policies. A poll conducted by an Israeli newspaper shows 82% of Israelis support a military invasion of Rafah, and two-thirds oppose aid while Hamas holds any hostages:
Most Israelis, 82%, support a military operation in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, a new poll shows, despite pressure from the Biden administration and Democrats against doing so.
Just 10% of Israelis said the operation should not happen “in any circumstances,” while 49% say the operation should proceed “in any circumstances,” and 33% said it should occur under certain conditions, according to a poll commissioned by “Globes,” an Israeli newspaper.
Additionally, just 11% of Israelis say the country “does not do enough” to protect civilians in Gaza, while 62% say Israel “does all it can” to avoid civilian casualties and 19% say “Israel does too much, since there are no ‘non-combatants’ in the Gaza Strip,” per the poll.
Furthermore, 44% of Israelis say that aid to Gaza should be conditional upon the release of the hostages, while 22% say that no aid should be given while the war continues.
It seems as though Israelis like border security, too. They like strong borders and the destruction of enemies who breach them to commit atrocities and start wars. They must be wondering why an American government worries more about the terrorists than the people who are trying to finally defeat them.
Also, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today’s show features:
- How did the Elon Musk-Don Lemon partnership end before it began?
- Andrew Malcolm and I take a look at the former CNN anchor’s claims that Musk is racist with a very large grain of salt. We also talk about the entitled media in general and the credibility bloodbath of their “bloodbath coverage.”
- Andrew has some good advice for Trump, and we have some bad jokes for each other, too.
The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!
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