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Talk Is Cheap
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is one of the most unimaginative and naive men on the planet. I realize that he is only espousing the line of the Biden Administration, but first he advocates one strategy and then explains why it is impractical to implement it.
On his latest visit to Israel today, he gave a speech trying to put his discussions with the president and prime minister of Israel in the best possible light. That’s just good politics. But I continue to be exasperated at his insistence that a “humanitarian pause” must be implemented, when that strategy will only work to the detriment of Israel. First, I’m not convinced that we can know which Palestinians should be entitled to humanitarian aid. Do they have special identification cards? Do they have to take an oath on the Koran that they don’t support Hamas? How do we know that they aren’t at least sympathetic to Hamas and will transfer supplies, either voluntarily or with the threat of force, to Hamas? How will Israel prevent Hamas from re-arming?
Then, there is the question of how long a “pause” should be. Will there be several small ones? How long will they be? Hours? Days? Weeks? Who gets to make that decision? What if Hamas violates the agreement? What will they do when Hamas, subtly or obviously, steals supplies, including fuel? Will the humanitarian pause involve the release of hostages? How will that be assured and implemented? What if they extend the release of hostages in the middle of the process? Who has the authority to insist that they follow through? What if hostage corpses, not living people, are returned?
My biggest question is why the US believes it is entitled to “help” Israel negotiate any of these terms. How much power over Israel can they demand because of the arms they are supplying? What if the US and Israel reach a roadblock about any of these efforts? Who will be forced to cave in?
Two of the most foolish proposals presented by Biden are not a surprise, but extremely impractical. The first one is that the only solution after the war is over is a two-state solution. I believe that died on October 7. Besides, driving the Jews into the sea is not just a Hamas mission; it is shared by many Palestinians. When a reporter asked Blinken about the extremist ideology that could remain, even after Hamas is defeated, Blinken replied, “We’ll just need to come up with a better idea.”
I assume that Israel is going along with the U.S. interference for a couple of reasons. First, they might actually learn something in these discussions. Talking together also builds relationships and at least creates the illusion of cooperation. But ultimately, I expect them to keep talking for quite a long time.
Talk is cheap.
Published in Foreign Policy
To be fair Team Biden is actually Team Obama’s fifth string. Obama was already on his third string in the last couple of years of his term (not that his first string was anything to write home about).
Obama started with the third string. Being better at everything than his staff was an aspiration, and the only way Barry could pull that off was bringing in mediocre intellects.
That would make Biden’s team, Obama’s….7th string team. Seems about right.
Five more and you will have a nice guitar.
But I fear we would lose the country if we wait for Biden to cycle through 5 more foreign policy teams.
We lost the country in 2020.
There seems to be more and more evidence that that is true. As revelations are made, but not corrections; as the true insurrectionists tear down the constitutional republic some of them swore to uphold; as the rule of law is perverted to an extension of politics; it seems we must accept that no one else is coming to the rescue. America needs a rebirth. And it will be painful.
Look at the lies. Republican politicians were all talk about overturning Roe until Roe got overturned. Now they all blame Dobbs for election losses. They are right. Dobbs is a factor.
Why should a decision that lets individual states decide drive elections? For two reasons. One, bad messaging. After telling us for years they supported overturning Roe, they had no plan on what to say when it happened. Many want to screw around like immoral bitches and bastards and then kill the unwanted babies that result. There is no sugar-coating what they want but yet we let them think that is justified behavior. Nobody convinces them that their state chooses.
Two. Democrats don’t want each state choosing. That is why we got Roe. They want to normalize their bad behavior and shove their baby-killing down all our throats.
Sodom and Gomorrah were bad and were destroyed. Democrats now say, “Hold my beer.
Apparently the world wants only at this point to kill babies and Jews. A sad commentary on our times.
Doing the one is good practice for doing the other. Gotta start small and work your way up.
Both are precivilizational practices, or at least early civilization pagan practices.
Yep, human sacrifices to enable a better life