"Don't Underestimate Joe's Ability To . . . "

What almost nobody has mentioned about Joe's Friday Dr Evil grin is that it was made just incidentally following his announcement of a new Gaza cease-fire plan, which itself incidentally followed his comments on Trump's conviction.

Under the guise of announcing a proposed ceasefire agreement in the Israel-Gaza war, Biden took to a podium in the White House state dining room at 1:30 p.m. on Friday. He began his statement not with details of the peace plan but rather with a lecture about how the “rule of law” prevailed in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump. “Donald Trump was given every opportunity to defend himself,” Biden said of his 2024 Republican presidential rival. “And after careful deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous verdict. They found Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.”

. . . “It’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”

But that wasn't what Joe was actually there to announce. He actually had big news on Gaza:

US President Joe Biden has urged Hamas to accept a new Israeli proposal to end the conflict in Gaza, saying that "it's time for this war to end".

. . . Speaking at the White House on Friday, Mr Biden said that the first phase of the proposed plan would include a "full and complete ceasefire", the withdrawal of IDF forces from populated areas and the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

"This is truly a decisive moment," he said. "Hamas says it wants a ceasefire. This deal is an opportunity to prove whether they really mean it."

The ceasefire, he added, would allow more humanitarian aid to reach the beleaguered territory, with "600 trucks carrying aid into Gaza every single day".

The second phase would see all remaining living hostages returned, including male soldiers. The ceasefire would then become "the cessation of hostilities, permanently."

But as of yesterday, Netanyahu turned out not to be on board:

"Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: The destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel," Netanyahu said.

"Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter," he added.

Remarking on the significance, Times of Israel observed that "His comments, in a rare statement published on the Sabbath and only in English, came after United States President Joe Biden announced Friday that Israel had proposed a three-phase deal for a ceasefire in Gaza in exchange for Hamas releasing hostages, told the terror group to accept it and urged the Israeli government to stand behind it."

Let's consider that Joe's top priorities since last October have been, first, to regain the lead over Trump in presidential polling, and second, to appease the anti-Zionist wing of Democrats and end US support for Israel without alienating Jewish Democrats, who are major donors and influencers. He apparently has hoped to accomplish the second goal by brokering a cease-fire in Gaza before the IDF can eliminate Hamas there entirely. But his obstacles to accomplishing both goals are Trump on one hand and Prime Minister Netanyahu on the other, and since October, he's gotten nowhere with either.

According to the BBC this morning,

Two far-right Israeli ministers have threatened to quit and collapse the governing coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees to a Gaza ceasefire proposal unveiled by US President Joe Biden on Friday.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said they were opposed to striking any deal before Hamas was destroyed.

So far, the White House is continuing to put a happy face on developments:

However, the White House said on Sunday it expected Israel would agree to the plan.

"This was an Israeli proposal. We have every expectation that if Hamas agrees to the proposal - as was transmitted to them, an Israeli proposal - then Israel would say yes," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told ABC News.

But Joe's track record on holding back the IDF in Gaza hasn't been good. Earlier last month,

President Joe Biden on Monday [May 6] urgently warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against launching an offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah as the divide between the two leaders continues to grow along with the mounting Palestinian death toll.

The call between Biden and Netanyahu came as Israel appeared to be moving closer to a major military operation to root out Hamas militants in Rafah — something that Biden and his top aides have repeatedly told Israeli officials will only lead to more death and worsen the despair in the war-ravaged territory.

This had no effect; the IDF is apparently in the mopping-up stage in Rafah as this is written:

The Israeli military is in central Rafah, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed in a statement Friday, despite international concern and anger over its military operation in Gaza’s southernmost city.

. . . Over the [May 25-26] weekend, Israel launched an airstrike on a displacement camp in the city, killing dozens and creating global outrage. The strike also took out two Hamas leaders, Israel said.

. . . “The word tragic doesn’t even begin to describe it,” US Vice President Kamala Harris said of the incident on Tuesday. But neither she or President Joe Biden have said the strike crossed a red line for US support.

The problem is that Joe has been feckless in accomplishing the goal the anti-Zionist wing of Democrats has set for him, while he's steadily losing the confidence of centrist Jews like Alan Dershowitz. In fact, the short form of what's going on is that Netanyahu is the one who's been effective, not only in the Israeli political environmemt, but in the US as well. As I've already said, Netanyahu spent much of his early career in the US, and to survive with US politicians like Obama and Biden against him, he's had to be a US politician as well.

But this brings us to Trump. Trump has alleged that Thursday's guilty verdict “is all done by Biden and his people” and “in total conjunction with white house and the DOJ.” Whether this is strictly true remains to be seen, but I think a reasonable interpretation of the "lawfare" strategy in this case would be that it aims to split moderate Republicans from a MAGA base by making Trump seem at minimum unscrupulous and out of control, but also a criminal.

So far, this has had the opposite effect, since it's buoyed Trump in the polls since his indictments last year, and it's now driven moderates like Senators McConnell and Collins to support Trump publicly. Even Mitt Romney remarked,

“Bragg should have settled the case against Trump, as would have been the normal procedure. But he made a political decision,” Romney said, according to Coppins. “Bragg may have won the battle, for now, but he also may have lost the political war. Democrats think they can put out the Trump fire with oxygen. It’s political malpractice.”

So Romney is implicitly agreeing with Trump's position that this was a political prosecution. In effect, with the "lawfare" strategy, Joe has rearranged the political landscape from 2016 and 2020, putting the moderate Republicans, never comfortable with Trump in either of those elections, into Trump's corner for 2024. Other evidence is still anecdotal, but one clear result is that chants that sound like "Let's go, Brandon!" but are actually anti-Biden, have returned to big athletic events.

This can't be the outcome Joe thought he'd have. Don't underestimate Joe's ability to . . .