Joe Biden will, I think, never be accused of not trying. He has taken on some of the worst difficulties–covid, the covid-brought about economic mess, a fractious and divided opposition(today’s Republicans), Putin & Ukraine and now the current tragic unfolding events in Gaza and Israel. There is much still unknown and undetermined and ,much we all need to think about. I don’t expect to have a lot in the way of answers here. But I do have a few brief introductory musings on this mountain of serious difficulties and I decided to share them now.

There can be no doubt that Hamas, the Sunni-aligned but nonetheless Iranian supported terrorist group that has effectively ruled Gaza for more than a decade, bears the main responsibility for starting this. Whatever their complaints(and some are at least arguable) and no matter what kind of rulers and/or neighbors the Israelis have been(and they’ve had their bad moments, particularly when Netanyahu has been in power), there was no reasonable excuse for the slaughter of October 7 in Western Israel.

The Hamas leaders, who appear indifferent to the pain of everyone else including the residents of Gaza in whose name they wield power, must have know what they were doing to this extent–they knew it would lead to more violence. It is a simple rule of international, particularly Middle Eastern, politics, that if you strike Israel, Israel will strike back. That is a given, and while it is by no means limited to Israel, it is particularly appropriate to this small, but powerful and usually honorable country. It was established to be a home for the Jewish people when they had just experienced, as a people, the Holocaust and if any country ever had the right to use force in defense of itself Israel would be that country(Not there are not others, US sometimes included.)

So there was no doubt there would be retribution from Israel. The questions were–to an extent still are–how will Israel strike back, when will they do it, and to what extent will they unfortunately mimic the disregard for human decency and world opinion shown by their adversaries? We earlier today heard of a bombing in Gaza that had taken 200-300 innocent lives. Much of the Arab world and many others of Israel’s(and usually our)enemies used this immediately as a stick to beat the Israelis before the court of world opinion.

I too was offended and wondered how Israel could have been careless enough to leave themselves open to this charge. But even if the charge turns out to be in any way true, the guilt of Hamas in starting this remains. And now doubts are raised about what exactly happened. The Israelis have denied this was their work. They have, in fact, alleged that the missile that caused this was actually fired by Hamas or some of their supporters(Hezbollah, whoever)and it went off target with tragic results. The truth of this is yet to be determined, but I would say this allegation deserves at least a reasonable assumption of truth–it is consistent with what I think is true of the two sides and it is much more likely that the Israeli story is true than than it is not. Still, we wait for more information.

But what about the President? When I heard of the suggestion of this trip I was opposed. This is dangerous. Flying to the Middle East should be fairly safe with the USAF and the US Naval air power to defend him. But is it certainly not extremely secure, and the real danger is on the ground. No matter what our people and the security people of Israel, Jordan, Egypt and whoever else might be involved can do, there is no way to guarantee anything. There is always the possibility of a sniper, and remote-controlled bomb blast or a suicide bomber. There are just about never any guarantees of safety for any human being. Certainly there are none here.

There are also political risks. Though I think the President’s courage and steadfast determination to work for peace will likely prevent this, it is possible the effort will be a failure. That would be very bad for the cause of peace, for the President’s political party and further for the USA and its allies around the world. So the President is showing two kinds of immense courage here, physical and political. Whatever the outcome, no one will ever be able credibly to deny that.