During the eleven days of fighting between Israel and Hamas last May, the White House faced intense pressure from the left wing of the Democratic party to interfere with the Jewish state’s attempts to defend itself. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representatives Ilhan Omar, Cori Bush, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued predictable anti-Israel statements, while Representative Rashida Tlaib confronted the president directly. In an excerpt from his recent book on the Gaza war, Jonathan Schanzer labels these legislators the “Hamas caucus,” and explains Joe Biden’s response:
Today’s toxic and polarized political atmosphere in Washington grants the most outrageous political flamethrowers an outsized megaphone. . . . Twitter and Facebook have completely transformed the way politicians engage on issues and relate to their constituents. Rather than avoiding conflict, legislators now run toward political feuds on these and other platforms. The Hamas caucus of today understands that expressing overt animosity toward Israel comes at little cost.
Biden clearly understood that his left flank was a problem. Even if he wanted to support America’s ally in a war it did not start, against an Iranian proxy that sought nothing less than its destruction, the president had to play politics. As the 2021 Gaza war dragged on, Biden began to talk tough to Israel. However, a careful examination of the timing of this rhetoric reveals that the toughest talk came only after the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire was reported on Israeli television. With roughly two days until the ceasefire was to take effect, the American president had a blank check to cash. He could call upon the Israelis to halt their operations in Gaza, with the full knowledge that they had already agreed to do so.
From Israel’s perspective . . . Biden’s tough talk was not a problem. The reality was that he gave the IDF exactly what it needed: the political cover to neutralize Hamas’s military assets. In retrospect, the American president handled the Hamas caucus with the expertise that only someone with four decades of experience in Washington could wield.
Read more on Algemeiner: https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/10/27/gaza-2021-how-biden-handled-his-far-left-hamas-caucus-problem/