A Tale of Two Presidents

This op-ed originally appeared in the Daily Caller on May 13, 2024.

The English author L.P. Hartley’s 1953 “The Go-Between” is little read among the general public, but if they know it at all, it is for its opening line: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”

It comes to mind now upon the news of President Joe Biden’s withholding of congressionally appropriated arms to Israel. Everyone understands why it was done and, as usual with late-stage regimes, there is an extrinsic and intrinsic reason for it. The extrinsic reason is the president’s professed concern for the Israeli conduct of the war. He has been critical of it for several months now, and he does not wish for Israel to enter the settlement of Rafah, into which much of Hamas’ surviving manpower has retreated. 

As with all things extrinsic, this does not really speak to the nature of the issue at hand, which is evident upon examination of its discrete parts and contentions. Among them are the enduring truths that a fast end to a war is more humane than a slow one; and that forcing the Israelis to use less-precise munitions rather than American-supplied precision weaponry will result in more civilian casualties, not fewer.

Read the full op-ed in the Daily Caller.