Those who want to punish Biden either for his support of Israel or his efforts to curtail Israel's response should know that you can't punish Joe Biden without rewarding Benjamin Netanyahu. And I believe Yahya Sinwar is hoping for a Biden defeat as well. Both of these men are supported by hatred

I've heard that Biden could have stopped Israel's rampage by threatening to stop arming Israel, the way Ronald Reagan threatened in 1982 when Menachem Begin was Prime Minister and Israel was bombing Lebanon. I don't like to contradict people who are smarter than I am in their field of study, but this is bullshit. The comparison is absurd

One reason Biden doesn't have the same leverage over Netanyahu that Regan did over Begin is Donald Trump. A break in supplying weapons to Israel would be temporary, and would resume with a vengeance when Trump took over. It would spark a rally for the American right that the fickle and low-turnout left would fail to counter. The flow of weapons to Israel would probably increase at the expense of our support for Ukraine. This is what Netanyahu is hoping for

Another reason for the difference is in 1982, Israel hadn't just experienced the torture, rape, and murder of over a thousand of it's men, woman, and children. The war in Lebanon was sparked by border skirmishes and an assassination attempt, not by an invasion of sadists and rapists.

Israelis are in shock and boiling for vengeance. Parents are worried their children will be carried off on motorcycles to be raped and murdered in dungeons. Netanyahu was already in political turmoil before October 7th, then he failed to protect Israel from the worst massacre that the nation ever experienced. He has far more reason to give his supporters a sense of victory and a feeling of safety over a psychotic enemy than he does to yield to a vulnerable American president with a disloyal base who he'd rather be rid of

There might be a change since the latest horrifying event in Rafah in late May 2024. This might be, as Jennifer Rubin suggests, an inflection point. If so, that be in part due to Biden's pressure on Netanyahu .

If we want security and self-rule for Israelis and Palestinians, then we would do best to avoid rewarding those who benefit from hostility.