From the skies over Gaza these days fall American bombs and American food pallets, delivering death and life at the same time and illustrating President Biden\u2019s elusive effort to find balance in an unbalanced Middle East war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president\u2019s decision to authorize airdrops<\/a> and the construction of a temporary port<\/a> 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\u2019s military operation against Hamas without condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. Mr. Biden has grown increasingly frustrated<\/a> as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel defies his pleas to do more to protect civilians in Gaza, and the president went further in expressing that exasperation during and after his State of the Union address<\/a> this past week. But Mr. Biden remains opposed to cutting off munitions or leveraging them to influence the fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou can\u2019t have a policy of giving aid and giving Israel the weapons to bomb the food trucks at the same time,\u201d Representative Ro Khanna<\/a>, Democrat of California, said in an interview the day after the speech. \u201cThere is inherent contradiction in that. And I think the administration needs to match the genuine empathy and moral concern that came out last night for Palestinian civilian lives with real accountability for Netanyahu and the extreme right-wing government there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The newly initiated American-led air and sea humanitarian campaign follows the failure to get enough supplies into Gaza by land and represents a sharp turnaround by the administration. Until now, American officials had eschewed such methods as impractical, concluding that they would not provide supplies on the same scale as a functional land route and would be complicated in many ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Airdrops are actually dangerous, as was made clear on Friday when at least five Palestinians were killed<\/a> by falling aid packages dropped by another country partnered with the United States, and they can create chaotic, hazardous situations without a stable distribution system on the ground. The construction of a temporary floating pier will take 30 to 60 days, if not longer, according to officials, and could entail risk for those involved, although Mr. Biden has stipulated that it be constructed offshore with no Americans on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the situation in Gaza has grown so dire \u2014 and the prospects of a temporary cease-fire more remote, after Hamas walked away from negotiations on Thursday \u2014 that the administration felt compelled to reverse course. A senior American official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations said the tipping point came when more than 100 people were killed<\/a> and hundreds more injured last month after a crowd gathered around a convoy of aid trucks and the Israeli military opened fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The official said aerial video of the episode made clear the desperation of Gazan civilians. Although Israeli officials had hoped the release of the video might exonerate their troops by showing an out-of-control mob, the official said that instead it revealed conditions severe enough to make people rush a convoy at 4:30 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Critics said the supplies now floating down by parachute hardly meet the needs and only highlight the moral conflict in Mr. Biden\u2019s approach to the war, which started when a Hamas terrorist attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel on Oct. 7 and prompted an Israeli response that has killed more than 30,000 people in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any sense,\u201d said Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Palestine-Israel program at Arab Center Washington. \u201cIt\u2019s akin to showing up at a five-alarm fire with a cup of water while giving fuel to the arsonist. The administration is trying to deal with a political problem, which is the optics of supporting this horrific war with these cosmetic measures that are aimed at defusing some voter anger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israelis and their supporters reject that logic. \u201cWhy are they at cross purposes?\u201d said Eyal Hulata, who served as national security adviser to former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. \u201cThe message is \u2014 and I strongly support Biden for doing so \u2014 that he supports the elimination of Hamas, which is the source and cause of all those atrocities, while at the same time putting a lot of emphasis on assisting the civilian population of Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople who say that\u201d there is a contradiction \u201cactually don\u2019t differentiate between Gazans and Hamas,\u201d he added. \u201cWe do differentiate between Gazans and Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our politics reporters.<\/strong> Times journalists are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. That includes participating in rallies and donating money to a candidate or cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learn more about our process.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n White House officials have declined to be drawn into a public discussion of the thorny questions raised by dropping aid to the same people trying to escape strikes using American-provided arms. Privately, they say they feel damned if they do, damned if they don\u2019t. They also note that most of the munitions provided by the United States are antiaircraft missiles or other defensive weaponry, and they express doubt that cutting off or imposing conditions on security aid would necessarily change Israeli conduct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe have been very, very clear about our concerns over the humanitarian situation there and how unacceptable it is that so many people are in such dire need,\u201d John F. Kirby, a national security communications adviser to the president, told reporters from The New York Times this past week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr. Biden has strongly supported Israel\u2019s right to defend itself and retaliate for the terrorist attack. He has been criticized by some in his own party for not expressing commensurate empathy for Palestinian civilians, many of them destitute and displaced amid the destruction of their coastal enclave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During his State of the Union address<\/a> on Thursday, though, he went further than before in lamenting the suffering. The president did not change policy, but his tone and emphasis represented an evolution of his public messaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis war has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined,\u201d Mr. Biden told a national audience. \u201cMore than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are not Hamas. Thousands and thousands of innocents, women and children. Girls and boys also orphaned. Nearly two million more Palestinians under bombardment or displacement. Homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin. Families without food, water, medicine. It\u2019s heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president went even further in a post-speech conversation on the House floor with Senator Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat who pressed him to \u201ckeep pushing Netanyahu,\u201d known by the nickname Bibi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI told him, Bibi \u2014 and don\u2019t repeat this \u2014 but, \u2018You and I are going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting,\u2019\u201d Mr. Biden explained to the senator in a comment caught on a microphone<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After an aide whispered in his ear, Mr. Biden acknowledged that he had been overheard \u2014 but seemed perfectly content to have his irritation known. \u201cI\u2019m on a hot mic here,\u201d Mr. Biden told Mr. Bennet. \u201cGood. That\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The change in tone did not go unnoticed. \u201cThere was a recognition among progressives that this represents a shift in language by the president and that language matters,\u201d said Mr. Khanna, who exchanged texts during the speech with Arab Americans in Michigan, where anger at the president has been particularly heated. \u201cHe\u2019s becoming more public with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The friction has grown especially over humanitarian assistance. United Nations officials have warned that more than 570,000 Gazans face \u201ccatastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation<\/a>\u201d and that \u201cif nothing changes, a famine is imminent in northern Gaza.\u201d Before the war started, Gaza relied on 500 truckloads of aid a day, but the World Food Program said it is now down to 150<\/a> and needs to double that to meet some of the area\u2019s basic needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The senior American official said that Israel\u2019s strategy during the conflict has been to allow just enough aid in to prevent starvation and nothing more. But in recent weeks, several factors have threatened to push conditions below that threshold, including Israeli protesters who have blocked aid convoys from leaving Israel on the grounds that the aid benefits Hamas and slows the release of the Israeli hostages being held. A state of virtual anarchy within Gaza has also made efficient distribution nearly impossible. One result is that malnourished babies have begun showing up at Gaza\u2019s few functioning hospitals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The official said that while airdropped packets of meals would most likely make only a marginal difference, Mr. Biden\u2019s plan for a floating pier could have a substantial effect on conditions within Gaza \u2014 eventually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So in recent days U.S. officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, have adamantly insisted that Israel facilitate more aid into the territory without further delay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The official added that Israeli leaders might have anticipated that a deal would be reached by Ramadan, which is expected to start on Sunday, to release some hostages and pause their military campaign. That would have allowed a major influx of aid by trucks and spared Mr. Netanyahu from making hard political concessions in a domestic environment where many Israelis oppose sending more sustenance to the place from which the Oct. 7 attack originated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But David Miliband, the president of the International Rescue Committee, said on Friday that airdrops and a pier were \u201clast resorts\u201d that were \u201cexpensive and risky\u201d without solving the underlying problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll of these should not divert attention from the material evidence that only a cease-fire will provide the civilian protection, aid flows, repair of infrastructure and public health measures that are so needed,\u201d he said. \u201cFourth- and fifth-best solutions should not be normalized as effective alternatives to better solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n