Biden Sticks to ‘Tightrope’ Israel Policy While Rafah Deaths Mount
- Approach called ‘hard to execute and harder to communicate’
- Officials say they’ve shaped Israeli actions behind the scenes
President Joe Biden’s advisers have insisted for months to allies at home and abroad that his embrace of Israel has resulted in the least bad outcome in the Gaza war by reining in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s impulses and preventing even worse bloodshed.
That stance is coming under more scrutiny as harrowing scenes emerge from Gaza again and again. Last weekend, an Israeli airstrike at a refugee camp in Rafah killed 45 people, prompted fresh calls for Biden to cut off additional arms shipments and drew condemnation from US allies France and Germany. Samantha Power, Biden’s chief for humanitarian aid, said on Wednesday that Israel’s actions were having “catastrophic consequences.”