Will Biden stop the killing in Gaza?
As famine grips 1.1 million, US president seeks to redirect Israel’s planned assault on the city of Rafah now teeming with refugees.
An Israeli team is expected to arrive in Washington next week for high-stakes meetings with senior Biden administration officials as the White House seeks to avert a deepening catastrophe in Gaza.
President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on March 18. “The President stressed the urgent need to significantly increase the flow of lifesaving aid reaching those in need throughout Gaza, with special emphasis on the north,” a White House readout of the call said.
“The President reiterated his deep concerns about the prospect of Israel conducting a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than one million displaced civilians are currently seeking shelter after fleeing fighting in the north,” the White House said.
Biden asked Netanyahu to send a delegation to Washington to meet with US officials. The group is expected to include military, intelligence, and humanitarian officials from both sides. For Biden, the meeting marks a potential turning point in his support thus far for Israel’s conduct of the war.
Speaking to the Knesset on Tuesday, Netanyahu said he remained committed to a ground assault on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where some 1.7 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge from Israeli attacks.
“I made it as clear as possible to the President that we are determined to complete the elimination of these [Hamas] battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion,” Netanyahu said, according to The National newspaper and the Reuters news outlet.
The White House said discussions would explore “alternative approaches that would target key elements of Hamas and secure the Egypt-Gaza border without a major ground operation in Rafah.”
The meeting comes as Biden faces widening calls both at home and internationally to do more to pressure Israel to stop the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians, including halting the flow of US weapons to Israel.
As of March 19, White House aides were “working on scheduling and preparations” for the meeting with Israeli officials, spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters traveling with the president. “It will likely be early next week, is what we’re anticipating.”
With the alarming but predicted outbreak of famine among 1.1 million Gazans and more than 30,000 Palestinian civilians dead, US officials have been calling for a change in direction. On March 3, Vice President Kamala Harris called for an “immediate ceasefire” and said Israel was not doing enough to avert a “humanitarian catastrophe.”
Biden announced in his State of the Union speech on March 7 the US military would open a sea lane to Gaza provide humanitarian aid. And the US along with Germany and Jordan have been air-dropping food and supplies to desperate Palestinians.
“The president of the United States can make a call, and in pretty short order, I think the Israelis would follow through, if in fact he conditions aid to Israel,” Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, told NPR recently.
“There is no question that even in the short term, that Israel is highly dependent on the United States,” Telhami said.
In remarks to the US Senate last week, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized Netanyahu’s government and called for new elections in Israel.
“Five months into this conflict, it is clear that Israelis need to take stock of the situation and ask: must we change course?” Schumer said.
Haass: Criticism of Israel mounts
Richard Haass, the former head of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former US diplomat in the Bush administration, explained the US criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza in tactical terms.
“It was a war of necessity for Israel to respond, but there was a wide range of possibilities as to what it actually did—for example, its use of military force,” Haass said in a March 18 interview with Foreign Policy magazine.
“It could have been much more targeted with small units rather than various types of aerial and bulk bombardment, which was sure to cause large numbers of civilian casualties.
“Israel could have been much more forthcoming on opening up land routes for humanitarian assistance.
“Above all, Israel could have introduced a significant political track,” he said. “That has been almost entirely missing from Israeli policy.”
Widespread famine is imminent in northern Gaza where 1.1 million people are facing starvation, according to a March 18 report by a United Nations-led food security program.
This is the “highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded… anywhere, anytime” by the IPC, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. In Brussels on Monday, EU Foreign Affairs Representative Chief Josep Borrell said: “Starvation is used as a weapon of war. Israel is provoking famine."
Oxfam and Human Rights Watch have submitted a legal memo to the Biden administration documenting allegations Israel is using US weapons to carry out indiscriminate attacks on Palestinians and blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid.
US-Japan-Philippines trilateral
Biden will host Philippines President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and Japan Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House on April 11 for what is being billed as “the first trilateral” summit of US-Japan-Philippines leaders.
“The three leaders will discuss trilateral cooperation to promote inclusive economic growth and emerging technologies, advance clean energy supply chains and climate cooperation, and further peace and security in the Indo-Pacific and around the world,” a White House statement said.
Over the past decade, Japan has expanded its role in the US Pacific security framework to include military strike capabilities in response to potential threats from North Korea and China. Prime Minister Kishida is scheduled to address a joint session of the US Congress on April 11.
Marcos will meet with Biden at the White House on April 12 to review the strengthening allyship between the US and the Philippines. Since taking office in 2022, Marcos has met with Biden three times.
Blinken in Manila
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Marcos and Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo on March 19 to reinforce the US defense commitment to the Philippines amid escalating friction with China in waters of the South China Sea.
“We have a shared concern about the PRC’s actions that threaten our common vision for a free, open Indo-Pacific, including in the South China Sea and in the Philippines exclusive economic zone,” Blinken said at a press availability in Manila, citing “repeated violations of international law and the rights of the Philippines – water cannons, blocking maneuvers, close shadowing, other dangerous operations.”
“We stand with the Philippines and stand by our ironclad defense commitments, including under the Mutual Defense Treaty,” Blinken said. “Article IV extends to armed attacks on the Filipino armed forces, public vessels, aircraft – including those of its coast guard – anywhere in the South China Sea. Most important is we stand together in our determination to uphold international law – for the Philippines, for everyone else – against any provocative actions.”
The Biden administration has pledged to invest $1 billion in the Philippines to promote development of its semiconductor manufacturing industry along with energy and transportation infrastructure. The US in November reached a nonproliferation agreement with Manila allowing the transfer of US civil nuclear technology to the Philippines.
Intel community worries about Trump
Former President Donald Trump’s candidacy for election in 2024 is sparking fears in the US intelligence community and senior military circles about what a second Trump presidency would mean.
“Trump speaking favorably about Putin and using him as a credible source, is the language of extremist politics,” Steven Levitsky, a Harvard government professor and coauthor of How Democracies Die, told the UK’s Guardian newspaper. “Trump is an authoritarian personality if there ever was one in American politics.”
Trump has offered bizarre and troubling promises in recent campaign speeches. Speaking in New Hampshire last month Trump said he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO countries. “I would not protect you,” Trump said he told a NATO ally during his first term, calling into question the US’s commitment to the alliance.
Trump has gone further, signaling he would cut off US aid to Ukraine and has been working with Republican allies in Congress to undermine support for additional funding for weapons transfers.
His reaction to the death in prison of Alexei Navalny, Putin’s political opponent, was weirdly self-centered, appearing to draw comparison to his criminal proceedings in the US. Instead of criticizing Putin, Trump posted on Truth Social: “The sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our country.”
Putin to visit Beijing
Putin will travel to China in May for talks with Xi Jinping, five people familiar with the matter have told the Reuters news service.
"Putin will visit China," one of the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. The details were independently confirmed by four other sources, who also spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Another of the sources said Putin's trip to China would probably take place in the second half of May. Two of the sources said the Putin visit would come before Xi's planned trip to Europe.
The Kremlin, when asked about the Reuters report, said information on Putin's visits would be released closer to the date.
Putin's re-election in a sham election has been widely condemned by Western governments as unfair and undemocratic. China, India and North Korea, however, have congratulated Putin on extending his rule.
China’s industrial output gains
China’s manufacturing sector show signs of improvement in January and February while its property sector continued to weigh on the economy, Beijing’s National Bureau of Statistics said on March 18 according to The Associated Press.
The report said industrial output rose 7 percent in January-February from a year earlier, better than analysts had forecast. Spending on factories and equipment, known as fixed-asset investments, rose 4.2 percent, the AP reported from Hong Kong.
The property sector remained troubled, with investment in real estate falling 9 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.
The real estate market is “still in a state of adjustment and transition” but policies outlined at China’s annual legislative session earlier this month will promote “stable and healthy development,” National Bureau of Statistics spokesperson Liu Aihua told reporters.
“We expect economic momentum to improve further in the near-term given the tailwind from policy stimulus. But this recovery may prove short-lived due to the economy’s underlying structural challenges,” said Zichun Huang, a China economist with Capital Economics.
— William Roberts
That was a terrific survey of developments in US foreign policy today.