Pause? Armistice? Joe Biden wants to prove his influence Death after mushroom dish: hostess arrested in Australia on suspicion of murder

It was only one sentence, actually a single word, that caught the attention: “Break.” Because it was Joe Biden who said that word. And he referred to Israel’s war against Hamas. The statement was apparently made spontaneously on Wednesday during an event with voters in the rural US state of Minnesota. One of those present shouted to the president:

Biden then replied:

His attempt to explain further was drowned out by shouts of approval from the crowd: “Ceasefire now!”

The further Israel’s ground offensive against the terrorist Hamas progresses, the louder this demand is heard – from the US left, including Democratic lawmakers, from countless aid agencies and UN representatives such as the head of the Middle East Palestinian Refugee Assistance Agency. (UNRWA). ), at least from the Arab states.

But the US government has so far categorically rejected this: resting its weapons would allow Hamas to rally its forces – an immediate threat to Israel.

The White House is now trying to make it clear that this position has not changed. The president proposed a so-called humanitarian pause, i.e. a temporary and local ceasefire to bring more aid to Gaza and, conversely, to allow negotiating the release of more hostages. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken already suggested this last week. A Pentagon spokesperson said again on Thursday that a ceasefire is still not seen as an option. A break, on the other hand, is.

Apparently it wouldn’t be the first. During the event in Minnesota, Biden made another surprising statement:

Accordingly, a ceasefire was already in place when two of the four hostages released so far were released – and according to Biden, that only came about because he persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do so.

The fact that he is now saying this so openly is a departure from the US’s previous strategy of not giving the impression that it decides how Israel moves forward. American government officials are careful to make it clear again and again that Israel, and especially its military, makes its own decisions.

For example, the senior advisors the Pentagon sent to Israel reportedly only shared their experiences with the challenges of urban warfare, but made no recommendations on targets.

Pressure is increasing now that American citizens are stranded in the Gaza Strip

But as international criticism of the number of casualties in the Gaza Strip and the actions of the Israelis increases, the role of the US is becoming more complicated. They are not only trying to protect the civilian population in internal discussions. The president wants to openly prove that he has influence. Because the pressure on Biden – from the left, Muslims, activists, family members – is increasing.

Not only because of the number of casualties among the Palestinian civilian population, but also because of the several hundred Americans who are still in Gaza, be it because they were visiting relatives and then did not leave the closed area, or because Hamas kidnapped them as hostages of Israel during their attack.

According to Biden, 74 American citizens were able to leave the Egyptian border crossing at Rafah on Thursday, and five on Wednesday. When US Secretary of State Blinken arrives in Israel this Friday for his second visit in a few weeks, he will not only bring harsher rhetoric about the civilian population: “We have seen in recent days that the Palestinian civilian population continues to bear the brunt must bear the burden of this action,” Blinken said before his departure. “And it is important that the United States does everything it can to protect citizens.”

He is also tasked with ensuring that the number of American citizens leaving the Gaza Strip increases rapidly, especially as the humanitarian situation there becomes increasingly dire. A ceasefire should help with this, and the president’s public statement that there has already been a successful attempt to do so puts full emphasis on this. But it is in his government’s interest in another sense: the US absolutely wants to prevent the conflict from spreading.

They are not just sending deterrent messages to Iran and Hezbollah. The moderation that they are trying to enforce – less and less subtly – from the Israeli government in its actions in the Gaza Strip can also be understood in this context.

A symbolic political vote by the Republicans

However, the position of the United States, as the most important ally and most likely to put pressure on Israel, did not necessarily improve on Friday evening. It is still unclear what will happen next with US military aid, which is intended to support the country in the medium term after the Hamas attack.

The House of Representatives passed a bill early on Thursday evening that makes 14 billion dollars (about 13 billion euros) in money available for Israel. This corresponds to the amount Biden demanded in a widely watched televised speech about two weeks ago. However, Republicans ignore his proposals for military aid to Ukraine and humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

In exchange for aid to Israel, the bill they put to the vote would instead provide savings for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This is a long-cherished dream of the right; Biden, by contrast, made extra money for the IRS a pillar of his economic policy — after the chronically underfunded authority also failed Donald Trump’s tax audit. Rich tax evaders will not be allowed to get away with it so easily in the future.

So Republicans, who have recently repeatedly expressed their unconditional support for Israel, especially in contrast to divided Democrats, are now attaching conditions to this support.

Conditions they know won’t be met: The Senate won’t even take up the bill for consideration, and Biden has said he wouldn’t sign such legislation if it reached his desk. That did not stop twelve members of his own party – all close supporters of Israel – from voting for the Republicans’ symbolic political design.

The whole thing suggests that a number of confrontations will take place in the coming weeks: between the House of Representatives and the Senate, between the wing of Republicans close to Trump and the few who still look rationally at foreign and security policy, and also within the Democratic Party, how to deal with this. How these confrontations ultimately end also plays a role in the question of what influence Biden has on Israel.

This article first appeared on Zeit Online. Watson may have changed the headings and subheadings. Click here for the original.