Genocide Joe May be a Fitting Moniker

One of the latest slurs against Joe Biden has been calling him “Genocide Joe.” Pro-Hamas protestors are attacking Biden for his support of Israel, and their claim that he is supporting genocide is untrue on its face: the war in Gaza is not genocide. But the negative criticism of the positions that Biden has been taking in support of Israel indicate he doesn’t have global support:

Former Obama apparatchik Van Jones was on CNN Thursday, applying heavy pressure to Old Joe Biden to get him to end the U.S. alliance with Israel and abandon the Jewish state to the tender mercies of Hamas and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Today’s youth, said Jones, and remember, the children are our future and all that, have a cutting new nickname for the sinister old kleptocrat in the Oval Office: Genocide Joe. And if Old Joe doesn’t throw Israel to the wolves, and pronto, that nickname is going to stick. What Jones didn’t say, however, was the most important point of all: Israel is not committing a genocide at all, and this claim is a product of leftist and jihadi propaganda, to which young people today are disturbingly susceptible.

Biden and his sidekick Antony Blinken have teamed up to put even greater pressure on Israel to agree to a two-state solution. In some ways, this is not new discussion, but in many ways the narrative has changed. Instead of using the language from the Oslo Agreements, which insisted on a negotiated agreement, leaders are insisting on giving the Palestinians their own state.

[David] Cameron's remarks suggest that Britain is now ready to recognize a Palestinian state without waiting for a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian agreement. This turnabout in US and British policy aims to create facts on the ground by establishing a terrorist genocidal Arab state on Israel's doorstep, on either side of Israel, and encourage the Palestinians not to resume peace negotiations with Israel.

The U.S. and Britain are not the only ones changing the narrative:

The EU’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said recently, ‘I don’t think we should talk about the Middle East peace process anymore. We should start talking specifically about the two-state-solution implementation process.’ What if Israel does not agree, and views a Palestinian state as an unacceptable security threat? Borrell’s answer was that ‘One thing is clear—Israel cannot have the veto right to the self-determination of the Palestinian people. The United Nations recognizes and has recognized many times the self-determination right of the Palestinian people. No one can veto it.’

This change in narrative suggests that the Palestinians can also continue to behave as they always have:

Why should any Palestinian leader return to the negotiating table with Israel when the Americans and British are already offering them a state on a platter, unilaterally and unconditionally? By making such statements, the US and Britain are sending a message to the Palestinians that they can continue to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel and do not need to renounce terrorism, dismantle the multiple armed groups in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people or do anything at all.

A serious question that arises when discussing a two-state solution is who will govern. No one (outside of the Palestinians) takes seriously the recommendation that Hamas will participate in governing. Then there are those people who recommend that the Palestinian Authority would be a good choice; they would just need to submit to a complete makeover to qualify, according to the United States. Of course, no one has asked the PA how it feels about making potential changes. Meanwhile, the PA continues its policy of paying survivors of suicide bombers and supports Hamas:

It is no wonder then that the PA has until now refused to condemn Hamas's October 7 atrocities. It is not because the PA is afraid of Hamas. Instead, it is because Abbas and his cohorts consider Hamas an integral and indispensable part of Palestinian society, as well as a future partner in a Palestinian government.

Biden likes to blame Benjamin Netanyahu for being a major roadblock to creating a two-state solution, but the Israeli people are overwhelmingly against that effort. A survivor of the October 7 atrocity made the following statement:

In an interview last month with Israel’s Channel 14, Bachar explained, ‘We need to ask if we are capable of coexisting there. The 7th of October showed that the level of evil there means that coexistence is apparently impossible. We can’t do it anymore. Because we gave them everything. They even worked in our community. And in the end, we were proven wrong. … We reached the point where their children burned us alive in our shelters. The older ones shot us through the doors. And anyone who tried to jump out the window—they shot him again. Their elderly, on wheelchairs, and their handicapped arrived at Kibbutz Be’eri, and they looted us and kidnapped us as hostages. We need to understand this situation. And when a person has infinite demands at negotiations, apparently, either we won’t be here or they won’t be here. We mustn’t leave.’

The problems with creating two states are also enormous. Some aren’t difficult to resolve, but others are serious, as Elliott Abrams explains:

. . . the tough one is Jerusalem. Will East Jerusalem be the capital of a Palestinian state? If so, what does that mean? The old Arab Quarter only, or the Christian and Armenian quarters too? Do their residents have any say in this? Is it actually being proposed that the Western Wall would be the Israeli border, and if you stand there and look up you are looking at another country? Or that David’s Citadel and the Tower of David would be in Palestine? A look at the map of Jerusalem shows how impractical is the division of Jerusalem again if the city is to thrive, but what about politics? Which Israeli politicians of the left or center are going to be in favor of dividing Jerusalem again, going back to the pre-1967 days—and doing it in the aftermath of the Hamas massacres of October 7?

I think that Elliott Abrams addresses the two-state solution with credibility and candor:

Creating a Palestinian state will not end the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ because it will not end the Palestinian and now Iranian dream of eliminating the State of Israel. On the contrary, it can be a launching pad for new attacks on Israel and will certainly be viewed that way by the Jewish state’s most dedicated enemies. A peaceful Palestinian state that represents no threat to Israel is a mirage. It is an illusion indulged by people in the West who want to seem progressive and compassionate, and those in the Arab world who fear resisting the powerful anti-Israel currents that circulate there and are now fortified by Iran. The future security of Israel depends in good part on resisting the two-state formula for endless conflict.

Given the international pressures being put on Israel, it’s conceivable that somehow Israel will give in to the demands for a two-state solution, and a devastating encounter will follow.

At that point, Joe Biden’s new moniker, “Genocide Joe”, will probably be apt.