The U.S. has significant leverage over Israel as its main supplier of weapons and military equipment.
They sure don't seem to, considering they never even explicitly threaten to use that leverage. Even the call, based on a situation that supposedly left Biden anguished, was still an implicit threat. At least based on what's published.
If Biden wants to actually get any change done he should damn well know that getting rid of Bibi is the only way to do that. The best way to get rid of Bibi is to make the Knesset realize he's an existential threat to Israel because he's about to cause the US to cut off support.
The Knesset just voted themselves a nice six week vacation. They don't give a shit. If Bibi goes they'll find another main man. They have plenty of genocidal nutbars to pick from in their ranks.
Bibi is a lynchpin that holds up a coalition of actual fascists. Those fascists have supporters(including in the IDF), but not a majority. Breaking the back of that coalition and facilitating the fall of Bibi's government would result in positive change for the entire situation.
The fact that Bibi will go to jail if he loses that coalition due to corruption charges is what makes Biden's softball moves so frustrating for me.
I think he actually got a little worried about the pushback regarding the most recent bombing of aid vans. Like, even the most pro Israeli outlets and groups online were saying “wow… that was a huge fuck up..”
Of course, none of them were acknowledging it was likely intentional. But I think in terms of gauging “are the Israeli people cool with us literally starving civilians to death” IDF leadership got a fairly affirmative “no”.
How do we know it was intentional? Although I guess the practical difference between intentional and callously indifferent is not very large in this context. So maybe it doesn’t matter.
We don’t, which is why I say “likely” - but the sheer precision and clear markings on the vehicles makes me doubt the “it was a series of accidents” explanation.
Maybe I interpreted the word intentionally differently than you meant to use it. My understanding of the IDF’s explanation was that they mistakenly thought the vehicles were Hamas. So by intentional I thought you mean they were knowingly killing aid workers.
I think everyone agrees the vehicles were deliberately targeted, but why this was done is open to speculation.
"All three vehicles were carrying civilians; they were marked as WCK vehicles; and their movements were in full compliance with Israeli authorities, who were aware of their itinerary, route, and humanitarian mission," WCK said in a statement Thursday.
I’m not sure how it can be accidental if you were told about it in advance.
And even if for a moment, that the person who aimed the guns didn’t know, it was someone’s job to make sure they did. Someone knew.
