2023-10-13 23:22:00
For Jake Sullivan, there is no doubt: Israel’s response in Gaza to the Hamas attack is “personal.” And coming from the cerebral American security adviser, the remark says a lot about the way Washington approaches this conflict.
However, since October 7, on all levels of a White House rife with international convulsions, there has been a very particular tension. It was enough to listen to the angry speech given Tuesday by Joe Biden, which we have rarely heard so sharp, after the unprecedented deadly Hamas offensive in Israel. The Democrat spoke of the “pure evil” manifested in the attacks of the Palestinian Islamist group, spoke of “killed babies” and “entire families massacred”. Israel has “a duty” to defend itself, said the American president, who also spoke of a conversation with Golda Meir.
The former Israeli Prime Minister reportedly told the young congressman from Delaware: “Don’t worry, Senator Biden. We have a secret weapon in Israel. […] We have nowhere to go.”
“It’s not just political action”
The anecdote is revealing of Joe Biden’s deep political convictions: at 80 years old, this pure centrist represents a generation of American officials viscerally attached to the defense of Israel. On Thursday, he told representatives of the Jewish community that he had taken each of his children and grandchildren to visit the Dachau concentration camp to understand the horror of the Holocaust: ‘I wanted them to see it’ .
On Friday, Joe Biden spoke by videoconference, for more than an hour, with the families of fourteen Americans still missing following Saturday’s attacks by the Palestinian group, some of whom are being held hostage. Twenty-seven United States nationals were killed, according to the latest report. “They suffer martyrdom, not knowing what has become of their sons, their daughters, their wives, their husbands,” he said about this interview, saying that this situation “twisted the stomach.”
If the American president is known to be emotional, this is not the case for his close guard in matters of national security, programmed to comment without emotion on the tragedies of the world. However, we saw John Kirby, admiral turned spokesperson for the National Security Council, interrupt himself live on CNN, his voice strangled: “It’s very difficult”.
READ ALSO “I don’t feel safe on campus”: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict electrifies American universitiesAnd Jake Sullivan, therefore, the “National Security Advisor”, who declares from the famous White House briefing room: “It’s not just political or strategic action. It’s personal “.
The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, a secular Jew, recalled, during a visit to Israel, how his grandfather escaped Russian pogroms and how his father-in-law survived Nazi concentration camps.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza, a “priority”
Beyond unequivocal support for Israel, the US executive faces increasingly pressing questions about the fate of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
In Israel, more than 1,300 people were killed, including many civilians and at least 258 soldiers, according to authorities. On the Palestinian side, the death toll from the bombings rose on Friday to 1,900 dead, including 614 children, according to the Gaza authorities. The Israeli army also claimed to have recovered the bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters around Gaza.
“We do not want to see any more civilian lives lost, whether Israeli or Palestinian,” John Kirby said Friday.
READ ALSO Hamas-Israel War: What is the Gaza Strip?Joe Biden assured that the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza was “a priority”, indicating that “the overwhelming majority of Palestinians [n’avaient] nothing to do with Hamas.”
Several parliamentarians representing the progressive wing of the Democratic Party wrote to the American president to express their “deep concern” about the fate of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, and to request in particular the restoration of water and electricity supplies to the enclave, as well as a “humanitarian corridor” to deliver aid while allowing the exit of civilians.
#Washington #Israeli #response #Gaza #personal