"Put another way, Biden’s “ghastly and self-defeating Gaza policy” paved the road to Trump’s war, on behalf of Israel, against Iran."
"National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk doubted Palestinians were going hungry amid mountains of rubble and corpses because the “people in photographs from Gaza did not look skinny,” reports the investigative journalist Akbar Shahid Ahmed, based on accounts from his anonymous sources.
"Not only were staggering numbers of Palestinians desperate for food. They lacked clean drinking water, medicine, and shelter. They were being torn to pieces—in many cases by U.S.-manufactured bombs—as the Israeli military kept up its relentless offensive. Yet the president and his top aides failed to meaningfully exert their influence to alleviate the suffering. Instead, their response was shaped by credulous deference to the Netanyahu government and disregard for both U.S. and international law.
"“Biden’s stubbornness was one of his trademarks; Sullivan and others closest to him began to behave similarly, such as questioning the Palestinian casualty counts, even as they received more and more information from intelligence and humanitarian officials that showed how their policy had failed to ensure that aid reached Gazans,” writes Ahmed in Crossing the Red Line, his must-read reportage on the Biden administration’s refusal to restrain Israel from perpetrating what a growing consensus of scholars, jurists, human rights groups, and an independent U.N. commission now consider a genocide.
"A diplomatic correspondent at The Washington Sun, Ahmed made his name during twelve years working at HuffPost, where he won awards for his Mideast coverage. The book draws on this prior work, augmented by interviews with dozens of former officials and a careful review of the documentary evidence.
"The result is a meticulously reported, damning portrayal of a president and his tiny clique of decision-makers who, despite their pledge to uphold the “rules-based order,” found themselves enabling Israel to wage war against a civilian population and destabilize the region. Future historians will rely on Ahmed’s account, which reveals how highly credentialed, intelligent officials can close their eyes to what’s in front of them and make policy for an alternative reality." . . . More.
Martin Di Caro is an independent journalist based in Washington, DC, and the host of History As It Happens podcast.
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