With the U.S. airdrops of food into Gaza that began Saturday, the White House seemingly intended to portray President Joe Biden as a leader taking decisive action to alleviate human suffering. But international aid groups criticized the airdrops as woefully inadequate – more show than solution.
Moreover, the expensive and imprecise drops of thousands of ready-to-eat meals into a sealed enclave of more than 2 million hungry people – a second set was carried out Tuesday – quickly came to symbolize the American superpower’s unwillingness to restrain its close ally Israel’s right to self-defense.
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Sometimes a nation’s desire to show compassion may not be enough. In the face of pressing need, a superpower’s gesture can be construed as token or, worse, a sign of impotence.
It is Israel’s 5-month-old war on Hamas following the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack in Israel that has led to Gaza’s devastation. And it is Israel’s security clampdown on border crossings (along with similar actions by Egypt) that is at least partially responsible for the looming mass starvation.
With polls showing that a plurality of Americans now think Israel has gone too far in Gaza, the White House is expressing more forceful frustration with Israel.
“The Israeli government must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid,” Vice President Kamala Harris told an audience in Selma, Alabama, Sunday. “No excuses.”
If the U.S. airdrops of food into Gaza that began Saturday were meant to demonstrate the Biden administration’s strength and resolve to address a deepening humanitarian crisis, for many, the intervention had the opposite effect.
The White House seemingly intended to portray President Joe Biden as a leader taking decisive action to alleviate human suffering and mass hunger approaching starvation. But international aid groups with experience in addressing conflict-caused hunger roundly criticized the airdrops as woefully inadequate – more show than solution.
Moreover, the expensive and imprecise drops of thousands of ready-to-eat meals into a sealed enclave of more than 2 million hungry people – some pallets of the first 38,000 meals dropped Saturday fell into the sea – quickly came to symbolize the American superpower’s impotence and unwillingness to impose its will on close ally Israel.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused on
Sometimes a nation’s desire to show compassion may not be enough. In the face of pressing need, a superpower’s gesture can be construed as token or, worse, a sign of impotence.
It is Israel’s 5-month-old war on Hamas following the militant group’s Oct. 7 attack in Israel that has led to Gaza’s devastation – unprecedented rates of civilian deaths, vast infrastructure destruction, and looming mass starvation. And it is Israel’s security clampdown on border crossings (along with similar actions by Egypt, another recipient of significant U.S. aid) that is at least partially responsible for the crisis.
In particular, the airdrops – a second set was carried out Tuesday – only underscore for many Mr. Biden’s refusal since the beginning of the war to take any steps that might be construed as dictating actions to Israel or imposing any restraint on its right to self-defense.
“There is a mistaken belief that the United States is able to dictate to other countries’ sovereign decisions,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a press briefing Thursday.
To which a range of Americans, from national security experts to members of Congress and average citizens, are responding that of course the U.S. has leverage, as Israel’s largest benefactor and supplier of military aid.
