Biden called Rafah a 'red line' but said he'd never leave Israel defenseless.
In this Oct. 18, 2023, file photo, President Joe Biden meets with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.has called invading Rafah a "red line." Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a trip to the Middle East last week, said a major military operation there would be a "mistake" that would result in more civilian deaths and worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis.
As Aaron David Miller, a former State Department diplomat now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, put it: "Biden's in a box and there's no way out." Some Democratic lawmakers, particularly members of the party's progressive wing, have called on conditioning military and financial aid to Israel as the humanitarian situation in Gaza worsens. Humanitarian and international aid organizations have exhaustively warned of the unprecedented crisis unfolding in the strip.
Still, that fissure involved economic aid, not military aid. It also did not come at a time when Israel was engaged in a war with a terrorist organization that threatens its security. "The challenge with explicit conditionality is it creates a contest of wills," Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told ABC News.
"The Rafah operation is part of a broader question of under what circumstances would the Biden administration exercise real leverage and impose any costs or consequences on this Israeli government?" Miller said. "It's almost six months in and the administration, despite its frustration and anger with some of the policies of the Netanyahu government, has been reluctant to do so.
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