Will Biden’s Deference to Bodies Such as International Criminal Court End Up Biting America as Well as Israel?

Israelis are concerned about President Biden’s penchant for harnessing the approval of world forums to promote America’s interests — should Americans worry as well?“Isn’t it time that the United States start listening to other countries’ ideas in the Middle East?” a British Broadcasting Corporation interviewer asked Secretary Blinken at Beijing over the weekend, accusing America of doing too little to pressure Israel. In reality, much of Mr. Biden’s foreign policy is based on building coalitions, many of which share little beyond one low common denominator: aversion to Israel. For weeks, America and most Western democracies pressured Israel to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza and end the war there. On Monday, Mr. Blinken finally scolded Hamas for failing to accept the concessions Israel is making and offering under such pressure. “Hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of Israel,” Mr. Blinken said Monday at Riyadh. “They have to decide — and they have to decide quickly. I’m hopeful that they will make the right decision.” The proposal, backed by American and Egyptian pressure, reportedly would include a return of Gazans from the south of the Strip to homes in the north; the release of dozens of terrorist convicts in Israeli prisons; and an Israel Defense Force withdrawal from parts of Gaza. In return, Hamas would release as few as 33 of the 133 hostages it kidnapped on October 7. Gone is the American and United Nations Security Council demand for an “immediate, unconditional release of all hostages.” As Mr. Blinken put it Monday, the current deal is for “an immediate cease-fire that secures the release of hostages, and building lasting peace and security in the region.”Israeli officials say that if Hamas rejects the deal, or adds new demands, they will immediately move on the terrorist group’s last apparent stronghold, Rafah. Yet, America has long objected to an operation there, and Mr. Biden repeated the warning in a phone call with Prime Minister Netanyahu Monday.If the military threat on Hamas’s final Rafah stronghold is absent from the equation, a deal relies mostly on “hoping” that Hamas accepts it. Yet, as America relies on partners — first Qatar, and now Egypt — to pressure Hamas rather than throwing its own weight in, Israel ends up making all the concessions. Mr. Blinken’s Riyadh visit started with a meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council, a regional organization now chaired by a top Hamas benefactor, Qatar. Perhaps out of sensitivity, Mr. Blinken did not even mention the terror organization in his opening remarks that emphasized instead the need for a “pathway to a state for the Palestinians.”GCC members — notably the United Arab Emirates — have diplomatic relations with Israel. Mr. Blinken said Monday that Saudi Arabia is also close to completing a treaty that would include formal recognition. Yet, the GCC seems to agree only to initiatives approved by members that maintain enmity to the Jewish state. That dynamic is also true at the United Nations, where “nations are united only against Israel,” a former Knesset member, the author Einat Wilf, says. Israel has a dilemma, she tells the Sun: “One of Zionism’s goals was to be accepted in the family of nations. Yet, since the 1960s anti-Israel elements have been using international fora to confer a veneer of respectability on blood libels.”By quitting world bodies, she says, “we would fulfill our enemies’ dream of a world without Israel. Yet, if we stay we would normalize these attacks against us there.” The Biden administration’s deference to the UN and other international bodies at times hurts America’s own interests. Israelis are currently worried about unconfirmed reports that the International Criminal Court plans to issue arrest warrants against Mr. Netanyahu and other officials leading the Gaza war. “The ICC is an independent organization, and their efforts are being undertaken without any contact or interference by the U.S.,” the American ambassador at the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters Monday. Israel is not a member of the court at the Hague. Nor is America. Yet, the ICC opened investigations against individuals in both countries. Merely asserting that the court is “independent,” rather than stressing it has no jurisdiction over Israel, could come to haunt America too. Mr. Biden, nevertheless, seems to believe that world consensus promotes America’s interests better than taking charge of crises. America, for one, “is respected around the world again,” Senator Murphy said Sunday, when asked by Fox News to sum up Mr. Biden’s case for re-election. Yet, is it?“When is he leaving?” Communist China’s chairman, Xi Jinping, asked an aide in a hot-mic video as he awaited the visiting Mr. Blinken recently. “Tonight,” the aide answered. “Good,” Mr. Xi said.

Will Biden’s Deference to Bodies Such as International Criminal Court End Up Biting America as Well as Israel?

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