(Wall Street Journal) Editorial - Remember Rafah? For months, the Biden Administration bitterly opposed an Israeli invasion of Hamas's last stronghold in Gaza. The mantra was that Israel had "no credible plan" to evacuate the city's 1.3 million civilians. That was the justification for the President's arms embargo. Yet the Israelis went ahead anyway, and two weeks later they have safely evacuated an estimated 950,000 people. "This Administration never supports anything we do until we do it," a senior Israeli official said early this month. To win Mr. Biden's consent, the Israelis first had to advance and succeed. But the delay his opposition caused has dragged out the war. Now the Biden team has moved on to criticizing Israeli readiness for the "day after" the main fighting. It's reasonable to ask what force will control Gaza in the future. But no one else will fight and die to defeat Hamas for Israel, or even to resist it as a civilian power. Israel probably will need to fill the vacuum in Gaza for a time.
2024-05-23 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive