World
Biden’s frustrations with Netanyahu ‘meaningless’ without action: Analysts
Joe Biden is getting frustrated with Israel.
That is what unnamed sources have been telling media outlets in the United States, as the president faces widespread condemnation over his support for Israel’s war in Gaza.
But as Israel presses on with its military campaign, Biden is nearing “a breach” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, The Washington Post said on Sunday. And he has increasingly voiced anger towards the far-right Israeli leader, even calling him an a**hole on a few recent occasions, NBC News reported on Monday morning.
Yet, despite Biden’s supposed frustrations, analysts say the US president’s comments behind closed doors mean little if he remains unwilling to exert pressure on Israel to end its deadly military offensive in Gaza.
“For anyone with even a shred of conscience, Israel’s war should elicit frustration and anger. But in Biden’s case, it has not yet forced him to issue an absolutely necessary call for a ceasefire that can spare Palestinian lives,” said Imad Harb, the director of research and analysis at the Arab Cente Washington DC.
“Unfortunately, and despite the fact that the United States has many tools of pressure that it can use to change Israel’s policies and behavior, it is Israel that is in the driver’s seat,” he told Al Jazeera in an email.
Deadly Israeli attacks on Rafah
The reports about Biden’s growing frustrations with Netanyahu come as the United Nations and human rights groups have raised alarm over an expected Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, a city in southern Gaza.
Israel bombarded the densely populated city in the early hours of Monday, killing at least 67 Palestinians, including children.
Previously designated as a “safe zone” by Israel, Rafah is now home to more than 1.4 million people, many of whom are internally displaced from other parts of Gaza and have been sleeping in tents.
The strikes — which Israel said were carried out as part of an operation to free two Israeli captives — came less than 24 hours after Biden spoke with Netanyahu about the planned Rafah offensive.
The Israeli military operation should not proceed without “a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than one million people sheltering there”, Biden told the Israeli leader, according to a White House readout of Sunday’s talks.
📍#Gaza Rafah is one of the most densely populated places on earth. Families have been displaced many times.
There is panic & desperation as 1.4 million people try to survive, try to get food & water – at the same time fearing for their lives due to continued military operation. pic.twitter.com/BjXeEiAjLz
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) February 12, 2024
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a US policy fellow at Palestinian think tank Al-Shabaka, said Biden’s call with Netanyahu “was a green light” for the deadly overnight bombings.
“Biden’s harsh words for Netanyahu, if he even really said them, are nothing more than words. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is policy, and Biden’s policy has been unconditional support of Israel every step of the way,” Kenney-Shawa told Al Jazeera.
Iman Abid-Thompson, the director of advocacy and organising at the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, said Biden and his administration have been “cowardly” because they have voiced most of their criticisms behind the scenes.
Those criticisms, she said, “should be said at the forefront. They should be said out loud. They should be understood by the public and seen in formal statements.”
Abid-Thompson told Al Jazeera that Israel has been emboldened by the lack of pressure from the US, which provides the Israeli government with at least $3.8bn in military aid annually. She dismissed the idea that the US may be unable to rein in Israel’s military campaign.
“I think this idea of ‘What can we do?’ is just an absolute joke,” she said. “There is a lot to say about the lack of responsibility that the United States has taken in what has been happening to Palestinians, specifically by the Israeli government.”
Referring to Israel’s military campaign, she added: “We know that it’s only been upheld and it’s been strengthened because of the funding that the United States has provided unconditionally to Israel.”
Ways to exert pressure
Asked on Monday whether the Biden administration would consider cutting aid to Israel if it presses ahead with its plans in Rafah, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington “has pursued the policy that we think gives us the maximum ability to be successful in influencing how Israel conducts its military campaign”.
Miller told reporters that, “in many cases”, the administration has been unhappy with the results. But Washington has not assessed whether cutting aid “would be more impactful than the steps that we have already taken”, he said.
“I think that sometimes people pretend that the United States of America has a magic wand that it can wave to make any situation in the world roll out in exactly the way that we would want it to, and that is never the case,” Miller also said during the news conference.
“We use the tools that are available to try to influence policy.”
At a subsequent press conference, White House spokesman John Kirby echoed Miller’s stance. When asked if Biden had ever threatened to strip US military aid ahead of the anticipated Rafah offensive, he responded with a general statement of support for Israel.
“We’re going to continue to support Israel,” Kirby said. “They have a right to defend themselves against Hamas and we’re going to continue to make sure they have the tools and the capabilities to do that.”
But experts say the US could exert pressure on Israel by simply following its own laws. This includes applying the so-called Leahy Law, which prohibits the US government from providing military aid to foreign countries committing human rights abuses.
“Biden’s reported frustration is meaningless unless he ties it to concrete, tangible pressure on Netanyahu and the Israeli government as a whole,” said Kenney-Shawa. But, he added, Washington has instead “taken every step to minimise the cost of Israel’s assault”.
‘Moment of truth’
Since the Gaza war began, the Biden administration has approved weapons transfers to Israel despite concerns about alleged war crimes and the risk of genocide unfolding in the Palestinian territory.
It also has backed legislation that would provide more than $14bn in additional US security assistance to the country, refused to call for a long-term Gaza ceasefire and blocked attempts at the UN to end the war.
Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, a think tank in Washington, DC, said the administration “has failed miserably in managing the relationship” with Netanyahu.
But Washington can “redeem itself”, Jarrar told Al Jazeera, if it takes decisive action to prevent what he described as “the next chapter of genocide” in Gaza: the expected Israeli military offensive in Rafah.
“This week will actually be the moment of truth. What are they going to do when Netanyahu does not listen to them and goes ahead with the attack on Rafah? What are they going to do?” he asked.
“Are they going to continue the same failed policy, or are they going to switch to the only option that they should have considered all along, which is not aligning themselves with a genocidal maniac?”
World
'Show solidarity': Pro-Palestinian protesters camp across Australian universities
World
China increases aggressive moves against Taiwan as island prepares to inaugurate new president
KAOHSIUNG — Virtually every day, the People’s Republic of China does something unprecedented — its coast guard briefly boarding a Taiwanese tourist boat, flying military aircraft ever closer to Taiwan or increasing harassment of Taiwanese fishing boats in the South China Sea.
“This is a problem,” says Dean Karalekas, author of “Civil-Military Relations in Taiwan: Identity and Transformation.” “Because these unprecedented actions are creating a new normal. Beijing hopes that we (the West) will sit by and watch as they take over Taiwan, just as we did when they used these same salami-slicing tactics to take over the South China Sea.”
The world began noticing more of China’s hostile actions following the visit to Taiwan by former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2023, but the strategy has been in place for some time.
“China’s plan to ‘normalize’ military encroachments was planned long before Pelosi’s visit,” Taipei Times columnist and political commentator C. Donovan Smith told Fox News Digital. “The military exercises were far too complex and logistically complicated to have been planned in the short span of time between the announcement of her trip and her arrival in Taiwan.”
TAIWAN ELECTION: RULING PARTY CANDIDATE WINS TIGHTLY CONTESTED PRESIDENTIAL RACE, UPSETTING CHINA’S AMBITIONS
Surrounding Taiwan in a mock “quarantine” and performing missile “tests” in 2023 was also intended to push Taiwanese voters toward politicians and parties more friendly to China. But, as has been the case in the last three elections here, Beijing’s ploys were ineffectual. Taiwan in January elected the incumbent vice president, William Lai, to take over from two-term President Tsai Ing-wen. Both Tsai and Lai are members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The incoming Taiwan president has repeatedly pledged to make no changes to policies in place over the last eight years. Beijing, however, sees William Lai (Lai Ching-te) as a “splittist” and a supporter of Taiwan independence. Lai previously did voice support for independence but has tried to walk that back. China, however, does not forgive nor forget. Many political experts believe Beijing will ratchet up pressure as Lai enters office later this month.
A recent example of China’s attempts to establish this “new normal” is changes to airspace rules. China is close to finishing a massive new airport serving Xiamen in Fujian Province. Just 6.2 miles away, however, sits the island of Kinmen, which has remained a part of the Republic of China (ROC), better known as Taiwan, since 1949.
Kinmen Airport is strategically important for Taiwan. In 2015, the two sides worked out a deal to change a flight path that was a bit too close for Taiwan’s comfort. But in February, Beijing unilaterally backed out of the deal, announcing that, from May 16, new air routes would begin operating to “further optimize airspace” around the area.
FOR CHINA’S MILITARY PLANNERS, TAIWAN IS NOT AN EASY ISLAND TO INVADE
Few China watchers think China picked the day arbitrarily, says Karalekas.
“Beijing has a pattern of testing new leaders of enemy states. They tested Bush with the EP-3E spy plane incident. They tested (then-Japanese prime minister) Naoto Kan with the Senkaku boat collision. We can expect them to test Lai by creating some sort of mini-crisis around the time he takes office on May 20.”
“I think China is really ramping up threats,” Eric Hsu told Fox News Digital. Hsu lives in southern Taiwan’s biggest city, Kaohsiung, has worked on historical restoration projects and hosts a podcast on Taiwan history.
He says he isn’t only worried about military hardware, but also what he termed, “brainwashing videos and moves by KOLs,” (Key Opinion Leaders, a term used to describe internet influencers).
Hsu places much of the blame at the feet of local opposition parties seen by many as more friendly to Beijing. Describing the current domestic political situation, he said Taiwan faces “not just an enemy at the gate, but also enemies within.” South Taiwan is a DPP stronghold, but not everyone in the south agrees that the opposition parties are the problem.
Another resident of Kaohsiung, a self-employed businessperson and mother, Ms. Lin, thinks the DPP hasn’t been sincere in reaching out to China.
“They’ve had eight years, and now they will get at least another four,” Lin told Fox News Digital. “What Taiwan needs are brave leaders, people willing to try new solutions, and I don’t see any such people in the current DPP leadership.”
TAIWAN PRESIDENT-ELECT CHOOSES NEW FOREIGN, DEFENSE MINISTERS AS CHINA ANNEXATION THREATS INTENSIFY
The main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT), denies it is “China-friendly” and instead says it is “peace-friendly.” Chinese dictator Xi Jinping has met with the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou twice, first in Singapore in 2015 when Ma was in office as ROC (Taiwan) president. It was the first time since the end of WWII top leaders from China and Taiwan sat in the same room. Each side in 2015 chose to ignore official titles and address each other as “Mr. Xi” and “Mr. Ma.” On April 10,, “Mr. Xi” and former Taiwan president “Mr. Ma” met again, this time in Beijing.
Some experts see such meetings between the KMT and China favorably, arguing that any dialogue is good and – if nothing else – provides a way for China to save face as it continues its policy of mandatory “reunification,” which China now says may need to be achieved by force. Others in Taiwan and abroad see Ma’s meetings as straying far too close to an acceptance of the idea that Taiwan is a part of China.
As it stands, the ruling DPP says it’s content with the status quo, including keeping Taiwan’s official name, the Republic of China. The KMT is generally more in favor of talks with Beijing under a mutual respect “consensus” idea that boils down to agreeing that both sides are “China,” but each side is free to interpret what this “one China” means.
The problem with the KMT’s thinking, central Taiwan-based newspaper columnist and political commentator Michael Turton told Fox News Digital, is that “Xi’s goal is the complete subjugation of Taiwan, just like Hong Kong. Two of China’s ambassadors abroad have already indicated that Taiwanese opposed to Beijing rule will be shipped off to concentration camps. Given this goal, how can there ever be dialogue with mutual respect?”
World
Brussels, my love? Champage cracked open to celebrate the Big Bang
In this edition, we zoom in on dwindling press freedom in Europe and check how Europe is doing 20 years after the big bang enlargement.
This week, we are joined by Olena Abramovych, Brussels correspondent for Ukrainian TV, Ricardo Borges de Castro, analyst in European and global affairs and Polish journalist Dorota Bawolek.
Panelists reflect on the big bang enlargement of the European Union that took place 20 years ago when leaders of 10 new countries presented their flags to Pat Cox, then president of the European Parliament. Despite the bumps along the way, the panel agreed it was a success.
“Even though you can say that the story has not always be rosy, over the past 20 years it has been a great story”, Ricardo Borges de Castro said.
The panel also marked International Press Freedom Day by focusing on the dwindling press freedom in the EU.
“It is very worrying and at the same time, unfortunately, not very surprising”, said Dorota Bawolek, who suffered attacks both online and offline for her reporting, and experienced censorship.
“Democracy in Europe is not living its best days at the moment. And media and media freedom is one of the victims of it”, she said.
Watch “Brussels, my love?” in the player above.
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