Nicholas Noe sur twitter :
▻https://twitter.com/NoeNicholas/status/1788530383916572675
As with his past public comments on his Israel policies @robertwrighter, Biden’s CNN interview yesterday needs to always be interpreted through his previous actions, statements as well as the long history of exactly this type of US-Redline/Israeli-Redline dance, one that has occurred so many times over the decades with quite predictable (and usually disastrous) results.
So instead of understanding “redlines” in the customary or generally accepted manner, Biden has once again given the Israeli government plenty of political, tactical and strategic flexibility as have previous US admins (see Big Pines/Little Pines 1982 Lebanon invasion etc.).
By focusing on the US temporarily “not supplying weapons that have been used historically…to deal with Rafah” or the ability to “wage wars in those areas,” Biden has therefore done what several admins in the past have done : they rhetorically and practically delineate a rather narrow line of action that will prompt a temporary (never permanent) US withholding. This allows the Israelis to then,
1) just internally “resource shift” (so existing stocks get used on Rafah in the short and medium term), and over time (and with enough political pressure) the US supplies to supposedly other units/sections of the IDF start to flow as before, but without any accounting/consequences for the internal weapons shifting;
2) with the enhanced response of its enemies to its actions (of course a wider regional escalation in Lebanon etc. would very likely lead to the immediate crumbling of any, even narrow “redlines” for supplies), Israel then is customarily able to argue that it must protect itself and its operations against the reaction(s) and this also works synergistically to rapidly erode any US temporary pauses or withholdings.
And let us not forget 3) that if the Israelis can just come up with a minimally plausible Rafah invasion plan that purports to protect Palestinian civilians, Biden has clearly said this could gain full US support (and then, as in past decades, during the fog of war, those plans breakdown or turn out to be grossly insufficient or aren’t implemented, but this is all after the facts on the ground are established).
Through this historical lens, Biden’s very narrow and pliable redline on #Rafah is very likely to be effectively run through by the Israelis, in a manner and at a time of their choosing.
If Biden had meant the term redline as most of us understand it, he could have, of course, just laid out a clear and irreversible set of policies that could withstand the 3 historical Israeli tactics above which always degrade US roadblocks/opposition.
He chose not to.