Post by The New Yorker

After the horrors of the October 7th attack, no one in the Biden Administration questioned Israel’s right to retaliate. Nor did anyone question the imperative for U.S. military backing. But the White House disagreed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how best to crush Hamas. President Biden and some of his top advisers worried privately that the scale of Israel’s retaliation could put U.S. forces at risk, complicate negotiations to release the hostages, and undermine the region’s long-term stability. But they publicly backed Netanyahu. “We repeatedly raised and discussed options for withholding weapons,” Jake Sullivan, Biden’s former national-security adviser, told David D. Kirkpatrick. But the President “always deferred on that decision, because we kept thinking that we were close to getting a deal” for a hostage release and a ceasefire. Sullivan said, “When you look back at it in the cold light of day, the trap in that kind of thinking is easier to recognize.” He added, “I will say straightforwardly—we should have put more pressure on Israel to take a different approach.” Several senior U.S. officials told Kirkpatrick that virtually everyone involved in Gaza policy thought that Israel was killing more Palestinians than was necessary to achieve any legitimate objective. Nevertheless, the Administration gradually came to believe that it could not persuade Israel to alter its approach in Gaza. Kirkpatrick reports on how Biden enabled Israel’s aggression toward Gaza—and Iran: https://lnkd.in/gbJWeQYB