Alan Dershowitz On Biden's Two-State Solution

He begins his discussion above:

The war in Gaza is becoming a major issue in the American political campaign. . . . What we're seeing is a very, very nasty debate over support for Israel, with the hard left of the Democratic Party saying to President Biden that they're not going to vote for him if he continues to support Israel, and there's no way, even if Biden were to abandon Israel, there's no way he would ever give the hard left enough. They don't want a cease fire, they want the end of Israel. . . . They don't want a two-state solution. The problem is that Biden has a two-state solution. His two states, however, are Michigan and Minnesota. . . . He's particularly focused on Michigan, because Michigan, has a population of several hundred thousand Muslims and Arabs, who will never be satisfied with a president who supports Israel in any way, and the ceasefire is just a pretext.

This is a continuation of the Democrat dilemma since the 1960s: as their middle American appeal has gradually fallen away, by the Pelosi-Biden era, they've had to appease their hard left fringe to maintain a steadily shrinking majority. But caving on hard left issues from unlimited abortion to same-sex marriage to unisex restrooms and now to Israel has driven away large swaths of their traditional base, first Catholics and now, apparently, Jews as well.

On one hand, it's understandable that Biden would cave on Israel -- he's tired, he's focused on re-election, and he seems to see Netanyahu as a lesser Satan nearly as bad as the Great Satan Trump. But this is pushing him into foreign policy, his weakest area. As the Bush-Obama fusion defense secretary Robert Gates put it, "I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” It also seems as though Senate Majority Leader Schumer has now bought into the Pelosi-Biden cave:

“The world has changed — radically — since [October 7], and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past,” Schumer said in what was described as a major speech.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way,” Schumer added, “by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel.”

Schumer went on to accuse Netanyahu of aligning with “far-right extremists” who are “pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.”

The State Department has gone so far as to nuance the administration's stated position on "defeating" Hamas:

State Department Deputy Spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters in a briefing on Tuesday that the U.S. shares the goal of “degrading” Hamas — avoiding the use of the word “defeating,” in an apparent shift of U.S. policy on the Gaza war.

On Monday, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters that President Joe Biden shared Israel’s goal of “defeating” Hamas, but believed it was not necessary for Israel to attack Hamas in the last stronghold of Rafah to do so.

On Tuesday, as Breitbart News reported, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his view that while he was happy to talk to the Biden Administration about it, there was no way to defeat Hamas without entering Rafah.

. . . Later, on Tuesday, Patel was asked to respond to Netanyahu’s statement. Patel said that the Biden Administration was looking forward to discussions with Israeli officials in Washington about “alternative approaches” to “target key elements of Hamas, help secure the Egypt-Gaza border, and do so without a major ground operation in Rafah.”

Patel then referred to “our shared goal of degrading Hamas,” which is significantly different from “defeating” Hamas.

Schumer himself seems to recognize where his stance on Israel puts him with his Jewish constituents and Jews nationally:

Mr. Schumer said he spent hours after his speech talking with conservative Jewish constituencies whose members were enraged. On Tuesday, he addressed a broad spectrum of Jewish American leaders, facilitated by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, by Zoom. In a statement after the meeting, the group said “our membership continue to have deep reservations about Senator Schumer’s speech.”

In the interview, Mr. Schumer was characteristically more eager to recount the kudos he received. “Did you see Nancy today?” he said of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat, who in a CNN appearance on Sunday called his speech an “act of courage.” He directed an aide to share a letter he received from Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister, that called him “honest and ready to step forward and say what needs to be said.”

Pelosi, of course, isn't Jewish; she's a nominal Catholic who has nevertheless been denied communion in her home diocese. It appears that Schumer is now simply part of the Democrat movement away from traditional religious affiliation, to the point that even liberal Jews are beginning to have second thoughts about the Democrat party.

At about 12:00 above, Dershowitz says,

If Hamas knew that Israel had the unequivocal support of the United States, and it would never back down, and it would always veto resolutions at the Security Council against Israel, Hamas would not continue fighting. They would give back the hostages, call for a cease fire, the war would be over. So yes, I am pointing a finger of Blame at President Biden for not doing what he should have done, which could have ended the war more quickly, it could have saved more lives. Hectoring Israel doesn't save lives. Threatening Israel doesn't save lives.

The problem is that Biden is tired, and whatever it may specifically be, something ails him, he's sick, and he's being pushed into an area where he's never had strengths, foreign policy. He's the creature of his handlers, who right now are sending him out on grueling campaign trips that are doing nothing to help him in the polls, apparently in hopes of keeping their jobs just a little longer, and which he almost certainly can't maintain. But whatever his fate between now and November, handlers of one sort or another will be in charge, and there's not much anyone can do before then.