Remember the ICJ ruling? That was January 26. So, two weeks ago the world court said that Israel is plausibly accused of committing genocide. There were a number of provisional measures ordered - and it's plainly obvious that Israel has ignored them. And no one is surprised by this - that Israel would show zero respect for international law and legally binding rulings from the world court. But it is still a small minority of people who acknowledge that this is unsurprising because Israel is a rogue state. Because Israel IS a rogue state.
Anyways, in the week that followed the ruling, Algeria indicated that they would bring a ceasefire motion to the Security Council. The US opposed this - as they apparently do whenever anybody calls for an end to the violence. Their excuse was that they believed a Security Council resolution for a ceasefire would interfere with the ongoing ceasefire negotiations. IOW, the current batch of negotiations around the Paris Framework are likely the reason the US wasn't forced into another immoral and gross veto at the Security Council. IOW, the stakes are pretty high here - the ceasefire negotiation is the only thing keeping the US from flipping off the International Court of Justice.
Which brings us to the change in tone from Biden. The "over the top" comment about Israel's military response. You know - the one that people are using to call Biden senile because he confused Egypt with Mexico*. What's the change? Hasn't Biden already noted before that Israel needs to do more to minimize civilian casualties? Here's the change - his answer does not invoke Israel's right to self-defense and does not reference October 7th at all. If it wasn't the guy supplying ammunition to the IDF, he would have been called an antisemite for this. He criticized Israel without condemning Hamas first! The change is that Biden acknowledged that the situation in Gaza is incredibly bad and indicated that this was due to Israel's "over-the-top" military campaign - and did so without excusing it by screaming "BUT HAAMMAAAS!!11!eleventy-one!" - and yes, I think this is a big deal.
Maybe I'm being too optimistic. Huffing on hopium and trying to grab any indication that policy might actually change. Biden does also say that he hopes the "pause" can be expanded and get Israel to change the way they fight the war - so he's still opposed to any type of ceasefire and wants more military action in Gaza. That's a HUGE fucking problem.
But it looks to me like he may also be concerned that this actually is genocide (because it actually is genocide) - and that evidence indicating such is going to be undeniable soon - especially if Israel moves on to Rafah as they are saying they will do.
*Biden does this all the time. He has ALWAYS done this sort of thing. Getting hung up on a brainfart from Joe "Gaffe Machine" Biden is a bit precious. That said - dude is ancient, so the possibility that he's got the brainworms is definitely non-zero. But Biden mixing up words or names? This is standard for Uncle Joe and has been for a long time.
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