From the skies over the Gaza Strip these days fall American bombs and American food pallets, delivering death and life at the same time and illustrating President Joe Biden’s elusive effort to find balance in an unbalanced Middle East war.
The president’s decision to authorize airdrops and the construction of a temporary port to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to Gaza has highlighted the tensions in his policy as he continues to support the provision of U.S. weaponry for Israel’s military operation against Hamas without condition.
The United States finds itself on both sides of the war in a way, arming the Israelis while trying to care for those hurt as a result. Biden has grown increasingly frustrated as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel defies the president’s pleas to do more to protect civilians in Gaza and went further in expressing that exasperation during and after his State of the Union address this week. But Biden remains opposed to cutting off munitions or leveraging them to influence the fighting.