The White House described the most recent phone call between United States President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as "tense and challenging.”
And what else could it have been? For the first time since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel began retaliating massively against the Gaza Strip, Biden demanded an immediate cease-fire — or else. "If there are no changes in their policy,” said a U.S. spokesperson, "there will have to be changes in ours.”
That still seems like too little too late to many, even and especially in Biden’s own government. While Biden was on the phone with "Bibi” Netanyahu, I was talking to Annelle Sheline, who recently resigned very publicly from her midlevel role in the State Department in protest over what she regards as American failures to observe international and domestic laws by supplying Israel with arms even as it commits humanitarian crimes in Gaza.