Gaza: Biden Never Forced Netanyahu to Stop Blocking a Ceasefire Deal

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Kevin Ovenden, London UK

1-14-25

 

This is NOT some kind of backhanded endorsement of Donald Trump. 

It is to pose an issue for the likes of progressive journalist Mehdi Hassan and others who tried to leverage mass outrage - especially among Arab- and Muslim-Americans - at the genocide in Gaza to attack anyone refusing to endorse Joe Biden as bringing about something worse. 

The issue is this. It is now becoming clearer by the hour that Trump has insisted on Netanyahu signing up to a ceasefire deal - not dissimilar to one that was close last March - and he will not put up with another attempt by the Israeli government to block one. 

It is probably to allow for Trump to clear the decks of various issues for the start of his second term. Similarly, he is signalling some kind of ceasefire and political process over the Ukraine war. 

It is of course ludicrous to suggest that it is because he is committed to peace. He is totally committed to US imperialism, but with a different policy and his own set of priorities. Highest of them is the shared view with almost all Democrats that China is the fundamental enemy of US capitalism. 

Nevertheless, Trump has demonstrated that for the past 15 months it was perfectly possible for Biden to pick up the phone and tell Netanyahu to stop. He did not - because this genocide is also Biden's genocide as a product of his stewardship of the American Empire. 

That's Biden's legacy - whatever comes to pass with Trump's alternative militarism. 

And ordinary people in politicised circumstances have a habit of remembering things. Those voters in Michigan and Georgia who rejected Biden. Those young progressives moralised at by the likes of Hassan for not enthusiastically backing the Democrats. 

The people scolded that they will be responsible for every bad thing that Trump does. 

Well, c'mon Mehdi and Democrat pals: try to run that hectoring argument now. Right at this moment, when the Israeli and Middle Eastern media are coming out with more and more detail about this ceasefire that is expected to be agreed - at least formally. 

All that those who berated people who were "supposed to vote Democrat" whatever the Democrats did have done, is to undermine themselves and perhaps shift a few of those they bullied so disgracefully towards giving some undeserved credit to Trump. 

What a mess the liberal Democrats have made. They didn't save Biden. But they have strengthened Trump.