Dems Clearly Feeling Pressure Over Palestine, But What Does It Portend?

Here are some news developments on the Gaza military situation during the last few days, as summarized by Megatron. What we see is the US attempting to push back against renewed Israeli plans for ethnic cleansing:

The Israeli government informed the White House that “the army is about to launch a major military operation in the city of Rafah” - Sky News Arabia, according to a U.S. official.

Nearly 80% of the entire population of Gaza is in a refugee camp there. Another unprecedented massacre awaits us.

Yesterday the White House announced that they do not support this. http://t.me/megatron_ron

Israeli Can channel:

"Israel will not launch an operation in Rafah before obtaining Egyptian approval for its operations under the Philadelphia axis"

If Israel mounts a ground invasion into Rafah in the Philadelphi axis of the Gaza Strip, Egypt will consider pulling out of the 1978 Egyptian-Israeli peace deal, the Camp David Accords – WSJ

So it appears that Israel has backed off from this plan—given that the Egyptians clearly do not approve—Egypt has deployed air defenses as well as elements of its armored forces along the border to prevent an Israeli takeover. But did US disapproval also play a role? Certainly the US will be concerned at a loss of influence with Egypt if Egypt is forced to appear to acquiesce in the genocide. That could lead to the fall of the Egyptian government (sympathy for Hamas runs high in Egypt and correlates with oppostion to the government). There has to be a limit to the amount of Middle East chaos even the Neocons can tolerate.

Sky News Arabia citing Israeli Channel 13: "Netanyahu requested the remobilization of reserve soldiers in order to prepare for the military invasion in Rafah" A bird's-eye view of the refugee camp in Rafah can be seen in the picture. There are currently about 1.9 million refugees. http://t.me/megatron_ron

In the meantime …

Biden, Democrats Give Israel 45 Days to Submit Human Rights Report
Breitbart ^ | 02/10/2024 | Joel B Pollack

The Biden administration, after urging by left-wing Democrats, issued a memorandum Thursday that will require Israel to submit a report within 45 days on its compliance with international humanitarian law in its war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

The memorandum, announced by the White House, theoretically applies to any country that receives weapons from the United States and is actively involved in armed conflict. But the White House all but admitted Friday that it was targeted at Israel.

The article, by a well known Neocon, goes on to explain why the memorandum is clearly aimed at Israel. It seems reasonable to me.

Still, it’s not entirely clear what concatenation of events led to the regime issuing the memorandum. Was it purely to placate domestic political pressure from the Dem base, or did the ruling by the International Court of Justice and world opinion also play a role? The two could well be related, at least in part—awareness of the ICJ ruling on the part of the Dem base could lead to increased domestic political pressure.

Further, how this will play out during the election campaign seems too complicated to forecast. For starters, it appears virtually inevitable now that Zhou will be forced out—forced out of the nomination and possibly even from the White House. There are too many variables in such a scenario to predict whether this would lead to either a change in US policy—increased pressure on Israel—or a change in campaign rhetoric. The Dem base wants a change, but the Dem moneymen don’t. Given that the Dem establishment has played this whole Zhou Demento situation so that they can pull a switcheroo without significant input from the party base, one supposes that the moneyment will win out, and whoever the candidate is will need to try to finesse the issue somehow, stiffing the base.

By the same token, the GOPers appear poorly placed to take advantage of any of these developments. Virtually all Republicans have placed themselves in lockstep with Netanyahu’s genocide, so an about face would be difficult. Then again, the choice would come down to competing for disaffected Dem voters by changing to a peace platform, or pursuing the present course in the hope of drawing in more Neocon money. The question could come down to how supportive of genocide the GOP base really is. Support appears to be waning in the polls, but it’s too early too gauge the significance of any change in opinion.

And how will this play with a possible collapse of Ukraine before November, and the border crisis worsening? America is facing crises in both foreign policy and domestic policy. None of the alternatives are terribly appealing for ordinary Americans, who will need to brace for more turmoil and uncertainty fueled by a feckless ruling class.