There’s heavy lifting to be done
11/9/2023“Nightmarish” accurately describes the challenges both Israel and the Palestinian residents of Gaza confront in the Israel-Hamas war, now more than a month old.
The Biden Administration no doubt perceives it similarly.
The surprise breach of Israeli guard posts along the Gaza border by Hamas commandos on Oct. 7 caught Israeli security forces and the Netanyahu government flatfooted. The raid killed well over 1,000 Israeli citizens, both military and civilian. Hamas kidnapped around 240 hostages as well, most of them Israeli but some of various other nationalities.
The Hamas attackers have hidden the hostages in Gaza at locations unknown.
Israel has announced its determination to destroy Hamas as a fighting force, not only in retribution but also because Hamas has announced it will repeat its murderous raids into Israel if it is able to do so. The United States made a similar pronouncement about terrorists after the Sept. 11 destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City.
But the Hamas terrorists are not gathered in some remote mountainous area. Instead they are mingled within the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely populated spots on the globe, where they have dug several hundred miles of tunnels beneath the residential and institutional buildings of Gaza City.
It’s a fantasy to suppose that Israel can take out Hamas without killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians in the process as “collateral damage,” a chilling term if ever there were one. That process has been underway now for several weeks, and television brings us graphic coverage of it every day.
An exact count of the dead in Gaza is of course impossible to verify, but the total stands at several thousand, around half of them women and children. Thousands more are injured, many of them critically, and hospitals and the entire health care sector of Gaza are stretched beyond their breaking point. Medical supplies, even fuel to keep vital medical equipment running, are woefully inadequate.
The Israeli government warned Gaza City residents to abandon the city and retreat to the southern sector of the Gaza enclave. But hundreds of thousands, unwilling or unable to make the journey (in part because Hamas insists they remain), stayed put. They are in mortal danger of becoming more “collateral damage,” as thousands of their compatriots already have.
The United States and the United Nations urge Israel to at least allow occasional humanitarian pauses in their attacks to permit aid workers an opportunity to help wounded Palestinians and to allow vital supplies of water, food, and fuel to enter the southern portal of the enclave from Egypt.
Israel refuses to do so unless Hamas releases the hostages. As of early this week Hamas has refused the release, except for four individuals, two of them American. And fuel is absolutely forbidden by Israel in any aid convoy. The longer the standoff goes, the more dire the threat to Gaza civilians.
Enmity between Jews and Palestinians goes back more than 100 years in modern times, not to mention biblical accounts of the same thing thousands of years ago. Solutions have evaded people of good will for what seems like forever. Attempts at long-run answers continue.
But as FDR’s adviser Harry Hopkins said in the bleak Depression days of the early 1930s, “People don’t eat in the long run. They eat every day.” Unless some accommodation between the Israeli government and the Palestinian civilians in Gaza is reached, a larger terrible tragedy lies on the horizon.
President Biden’s Administration is caught in the middle. Israel is America’s closest ally in the Middle East, and the U.S. needs good relations with Middle Eastern Arab states as well. Jewish communities in New York, New Jersey, Florida and elsewhere are watching closely how Biden handles the Gaza situation. So are Muslim communities in Michigan and other states. It’s a narrow path indeed that the Administration must walk.
And it isn’t the only immediate challenge for Biden. Ukraine needs American military equipment to continue its effort to beat back the Russian invasion. The southern U.S. border needs shoring up with more manpower and technological protection. Taiwan is under increasing threat from mainland China.
So three weeks ago, Biden asked Congress for $105 billion for national security. The components: $61.4 billion for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, $10 billion for humanitarian aid in Ukraine, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, and the U.S.-Mexico border, $7.4 billion for Taiwan and its neighbors, and $13.6 for U.S.-Mexico border security.
Each of the components is a worthy and strategic use of American resources. Each would earn us the gratitude of nations and regions where we seek to shore up our influence and to better the condition of people who depend on our leadership.
The Senate appears to favor Biden’s proposal, with bipartisan support already in evidence.
And the House?
Led by new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, the House last Thursday approved a bill that provides the $14.3 billion for Israel. But the same bill calls for an equal reduction of $14.3 billion in cuts to the Internal Revenue Service. That’s the entire bill.
That’s almost incomprehensible. With all the crises the U.S. and the world face, the House chooses to cut the IRS appropriation.
Most Republicans worked mightily to beat back the increase in IRS funding when it was enacted a couple of years ago. That bill to boost IRS funds specifically said it would improve technology in the department to provide better service to American taxpayers.
But what Republicans strongly opposed was the other portion of the increase, which would boost the number of IRS agents in order to reduce tax dodging by the wealthy.
Speaker Johnson said his bill’s IRS cuts would cut the federal deficit. Wrong. The Congressional Budget Office says the bill would REDUCE FEDERAL REVENUE by $26.8 billion by permitting significant tax-dodging to continue, and would thereby ultimately INCREASE the deficit by $90 billion over 10 years.
Come on, folks. There’s heavy lifting to be done, and that’s not the way to do it. ♦
