Traitor Joe's Regional Escalation Sale

Biden embraces Israel while running up against an exhausted public sick of wars in the Middle East

President Joe Biden, known pejoratively as “Genocide Joe,” or “Traitor Joe,” these days by his detractors, this week gave a muted response to the news that three U.S. servicemembers had been killed in an attack by Iraqi militias against a U.S. military base near the Syria-Jordan border. The base, known as Tower 22, was reportedly supporting efforts to pressure Iranian supply lines in Syria, as well as facilitating a long-running Israeli air campaign to hit Iran-affiliated groups in that country. The deaths of the three soldiers, all from the same unit in Georgia, was cause of heartbreak for many observers, including myself. While it is true that people who enlist in the military knowingly put their lives on the line, it is a betrayal to them and their families to waste their lives on conflicts that we have known for many years have little to nothing to do with the United States or its interests. Biden’s comments, vowing to retaliate, yet emphasizing that he does not want a broader war, reflect the reality that the U.S. public is simply sick of these senseless conflicts, and disgusted by the loss of more of its young men and women for no clear purpose.

I wrote about that incident this week for The Intercept, specifically in the context of the U.S.-Israel relationship, which appears to be a direct trigger for the attack and is a major driver of continued U.S. involvement in the region. In case there was any ambiguity, the militia group responsible for the drone attack on Tower 22 specifically said that it was intended as retaliation for U.S. support of the Israeli war in Gaza. The Houthis likewise said their recent attacks in the Red Sea are being carried out with the aim of compelling a ceasefire and forcing humanitarian aid into the Strip. This regional blowback leaves aside Hezbollah and other groups whom the U.S. is deterring on Israel’s behalf through a significant and costly buildup of forces in the region. The U.S. is now put in a position where it is being forced to fight the entire region in defense of an Israeli offensive that has killed tens of thousands of people, and appears increasingly aimless and futile. Biden told reporters after the Tower 22 attack that he doesn’t want regional war, but because of his uncritical embrace of a radical and unpopular Netanyahu government, he may be sleepwalking towards one anyways. This somnolent warmongering is yet another reason to call him Sleepy Joe.

Events in the region are evolving in ways that were unthinkable not long ago. After the October 7 attacks by Hamas, I felt quite sympathetic to Israel and I was not alone in the sentiment. Even people I know who are generally critics of the country by nature could not help but be moved and saddened by the stories of Israeli civilians killed on that day, including many children and beautiful families who were destroyed in attacks that violated serious moral and legal boundaries. I can say that the people who felt bad about what happened outnumbered the people who gloated, even though the latter are disproportionately loud and visible for representing a radicalized activist class. After four months of near-constant livestreamed massacres and atrocities however, my sentiments have coarsened. I find that I feel outraged and horrified by the actions of the Israeli government, which is committing staggering crimes of a type normally associated with pariah regimes like Russia and Syria. If you consume the news at all you can see a daily digest of outrages, often recorded and broadcast by Israeli soldiers themselves on TikTok. The major difference is that rather than condemn them we are forced to provide all types of financial, diplomatic, and political support for these actions.

Hamas’ attacks were savage. But they are also fighting a savage enemy, which does not hesitate from engaging in massacres, starvation, torture, humiliation, and every other tactic that U.S. politicians routinely condemn when carried out by rival states. Indeed, Israel seems to have a lot more in common with authoritarian Eurasian countries than with liberal Western democracies, which is probably why Netanyahu himself seems to gravitate so much towards the Viktor Orbans of the world. The October 7th war and its aftermath looks likely to set Israel on a direction that is even less liberal, tolerant, and stable. I believe that supporting Israel while advocating for liberal governance in the United States will become an increasingly incoherent position as time goes on, and it is already not looking particularly logical.

Despite its failures in the current war, Israel is unlikely to be militarily overcome by its rivals, mostly Iran-backed militia groups, any time soon. As both populist detractors, who constantly suggest Israel is on the verge of collapse if only people would just start shooting at it, and anxious supporters, who view it as a fragile and embattled underdog, seem to constantly forget, Israel has nuclear weapons and a robust doctrine for deploying them. These weapons are quite necessary because the path to conciliation is closed and to simply exist Israel will likely need to combat the entire region for generations to come. People have truly been inflamed by the scenes of carnage in Gaza and are less amenable to accepting Israel than at perhaps any time since the Nakba. There will be continued pressure for the U.S. to stay involved in the Middle East to defend Israel, but this will require more coercion to achieve as the values and policies of Israel come to resemble the U.S. less over time, and it continues a cycle of radicalization that is the typical byproduct of war. Likewise, Americans may be willing to send arms and drop bombs but they will not tolerate more tragedies like the one at Tower 22.

On a personal level I’m fortunate enough to live in a society at peace, so I’d simply prefer to not be involved in a war that will have no happy ending. That seems like a reasonable request since the conflict itself is taking place on the other side of the planet. Unfortunately, the Israel-Palestine conflict is truly inescapable. It is a toxic source of division and distraction in the U.S., where it is treated as a top priority of politicians, media, and institutions across the spectrum. There is simply no getting away from it. It’d be great if an off-ramp suddenly emerged that resulted in a two-state solution, regional peace, and a liberal regime in Israel, as some diehard copium addicts continue to suggest. That all sounds less likely than a successful Kamala Harris presidential campaign at this point.

I try to do my best to model optimism and conciliation, but I can sense that recent events have exceeded the limits of what even I can find tolerable. The longer the conflict goes on, and the more scenes of the sheer horror from Gaza flood back to the U.S., the more that polarization will impact our own society. Sad as it is, it looks likely that this will be a conflict that we pass down to our own children and grandchildren, in an even more toxic form than we ourselves inherited it. For that, and for the failures of leadership that allowed things to get to the stage that they have, I believe that Traitor, Sleepy, and Genocide Joe has really has earned all his sobriquets.

On Another Note

A few weeks back, I wrote about Israel’s case at the ICJ and the allegations of genocide levelled by South Africa. The court has accepted the case, but declined to pass provisional measures that would have ordered an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Much of the case is built on quotes by officials in Israel’s war cabinet that seem to show genocidal intent. At The Atlantic, Yair Rosenberg went through many of these quotes and found that the popular versions floating around in the media, including some of those later cited in ICJ legal filings, were often incorrect in significant ways that changed their meaning. Several news organizations have now issued corrections and even ICJ documents appear to have been modified. Yair and I have different perspectives on some things and he would likely even disagree with much of what I wrote above today, but he is a straight shooter and I’m not surprised that if he published about this topic he would be on to something. Competence, rigor, and accuracy are more important than ideology in my view, and given the technicalities involved in providing the serious charges at hand I expect that his findings may have some impact on the legal case at the ICJ.