I'm Starting To Wonder If Joe Has Thought This Up Himself

Sometime around February, it looks like the message started to go out to Democrats: we're backing off Israel. My reflexive attitude up to this week had been that this was the brainchild of the big guy's handlers, and they were just feeding him talking points. Now, I'm not so sure. What's changed my mind starts with a Fox News op-ed from Clinton pollster Mark Penn:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., set off a firestorm of his own making last week as he decided to intervene in Israeli politics by telling Israel to abandon its leader right in the middle of sensitive negotiations with Hamas.

I don’t think Schumer will do that again. He heard from pretty much the world and it’s clear that Schumer is out of touch with Israel or he would have known that telling Israelis what to do is likely to produce the opposite result.

But OK, here's Schumer, apparently not a very observant Jew, but a Jew nonetheless, who represents New York Jews, an important constituency not just in terms of US politics, but in terms of world influence roughly equivalent to Israel itself, and he's throwing Israel under the bus. Mark Penn, who has worked for Israeli politicians as well as the Clintons and others, seems to have a pretty good grasp of how this is playing among Jews and mainstream Americans alike:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired right back, calling it inappropriate to tell an ally and a democracy when they should hold elections and who they should vote for, especially during a war. Israel is the only democracy within the region which otherwise features everything from monarchies, theocracies, Putin puppets, and terrorist regimes. In fact, 72% in the February Economist/YouGov poll see Israel as an ally and friend, while most Americans (57%) see "Palestine" as an enemy and unfriendly.

. . . By about 82 to 18 Americans support Israel over Hamas in this conflict and nearly two-thirds believe that any ceasefire should occur only after Hamas releases the hostages, according to the latest Harvard CAPS Harris poll.

. . . The danger in the politics of what Schumer and Biden are doing is that it emboldens Hamas and actually complicates arriving at any kind of peace. If Biden had remained steadfast in his support for Israel and put the blame on Hamas for creating a tunnel city intertwined with civilian life instead of singling out Netanyahu, Hamas would be fearing extinction and would be much more likely to send out the hostages.

So it isn't bringing about peace in the region, and Penn's argument is very similar to Alan Dershowitz's the other day, that after all, there was a cease fire in effect on October 6; going squishy simply encourages Hamas. But Biden isn't helping himself domestically, either. Penn continues,

The truth is that the electorate is about 2% Jewish and less than 2% Muslim and when asked to name the most important issue, 2% named the Israel-Hamas policy.

In Michigan, 100,000 votes for uncommitted is a small fraction of the 10 million people there and just how likely are they to help elect Donald Trump? And the more Biden has waffled on Israel, the lower his Israel approval ratings have sunk.

. . . Playing domestic politics with the issue will only backfire.

The fact that this idea seems to be so counterproductive in any important way is what suggests to me that Joe came up with it himself. He seems to have a visceral reaction to Netanyahu:

President Biden unexpectedly crossed himself Wednesday [September 20, 2023] during a one-on-one meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in Midtown.

The 80-year-old Roman Catholic president made the conspicuous hand gesture — touching his forehead, stomach and left and right breast area with his right hand — as the Jewish leader began speaking.

And it's hard to avoid thinking the White House has sent the message that senators must get with the program.

In an early general election-phase gift to Republicans, incumbent Democrat U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio was reportedly caught on video saying he "frankly" doesn't "trust" the government of Israel to abide by a ceasefire any more than he does the Hamas terrorists seeking to eliminate the Jewish state.

. . . After some pre-approved questions were answered by Brown and Booker, according to [TikToker] Jordan's retelling, he decided to ask one of his own as the event was ending. "Do you support a ceasefire in Gaza?” Jordan asked while recording with his phone.

"I would answer that question for weeks, 'no,' only because I don't trust that either Hamas or frankly Netanyahu would live up to that ceasefire," Brown said in his off-camera answer.

After capturing Brown's answer, Jordan said in a TikTok recapping the meeting that a staffer for the senator asked Jordan to delete the video and at one point asked for Jordan to "Give me your phone," two requests with which Jordan did not comply.

. . . the reactions from Brown's aides once they realized his comments had been recorded seem to speak for themselves.

Another indication that Joe is running the administration's Gaza policy comes from Netanyahu himself:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly suggested that the new US-built makeshift port off Gaza, which was installed to help ship aid to the besieged enclave, could be used to deport Palestinians.

. . . [S]peaking at a private meeting of the Knessett's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Netanyahu suggested the port could also facilitate the removal of Palestinians from Gaza.

Netanyahu said there was "no obstacle" to the Palestinians leaving the Gaza Strip apart from the unwillingness of other countries to accept them, according to a Kan News journalist.

Isn't this just the sort of idea Joe might come up with, importing a whole new set of refugees with a whole new bundle of angry demands on top of the millions already coming over US borders? If Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt don't want that sort of thing, then hey, we'll take them ourselves!

But the actual threat is more immediate:

The New York Sun reported Monday that Old Joe and his henchmen are “reportedly considering leaving Israel short of the armaments it needs to fight Hamas.” The veiled threat was there on that same day, during the callow but thoroughly indoctrinated National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s White House press briefing. A reporter reminded Sullivan that “the deadline for Israel to comply with the National Security Memorandum 20 is coming up on Sunday,” and asked him: “Has Israel responded in writing?”

National Security Memorandum 20 . . . . is only a few weeks old, dating from Feb. 8. It seeks, among other things, to “prevent arms transfers that risk facilitating or otherwise contributing to violations of human rights or international humanitarian law.”

. . . [Y]ou will be absolutely unshocked to learn that Old Joe’s new rule is being applied selectively. The Sun notes that “In reality, arms are sold to foes and allies alike in all five continents, with little notice of rights violations. Mr. Biden urged Congress last month to approve the sale of F-16s to Turkey, even as it massacres Kurds in Iraq and Syria.” No one asked Jake Sullivan at Monday’s press briefing if arms sales to Turkey would be cut off.

Alan Dershnowitz, in the YouTube I linked Wednesday, said at 21:00

Everybody has their red line. I'll tell you what my red line is. If you stop supplying ammunition and arms to Israel and deny them the right to defend themselves, you have crossed my red line. I hope that doesn't happen. I now have a more open mind than I ever thought I would have about whom I will vote for in this election. The Democratic Party cannot take me, the people who listen to me, the people who vote the way I do, they can't take us for granted, sorry.

This particular issue is causing me to move away from the idea that Joe is somehow less than fully functional, at least in certain areas. I really think he's capable of making at least some decisions -- they're just bad ones. If he's losing Dershowitz, which he clearly seems to be in the process of doing, he has a problem of political judgment that goes beyond some potential issue of medical diagnosis.