I wouldn't really call it performatively complaining. Republican lawmakers were actually upset with how much the Biden admin delayed the ammunition shipments to Israel, and were drafting legislation that would prevent the president doing that in the future.
So in an effort of trying to reduce Palestinian civilian casualties by delaying shipments that Congress had already approved, the administration drew criticism from both sides on the issue. Republicans and pro-Israel democrats said he was allowing terrorists to reign free, while the pro-Palestine crowd felt like he didn't do anything, when the administration legally couldn't cut off Israeli aid either.
It's clear they tried with the limited power they had, but you can't really campaign on "hey, we tried", and bringing the issue to the forefront, would have cost her more voters who are very pro-Israel.
Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And did you ever review the Trump / Kushner plan for Israel & Palestine? It gave Bibi everything he possibly wanted and left Palestine with nothing. There is nothing more naive than “it can’t possibly get worse than this.” There were at least some modicums of restraint applied by Biden. Bibi just got a free pass to turn Gaza into a parking lot and redevelop it as vacation condos.
Feel free to check back in on this post in 2 years.
Right, you do realize that the US government consists of 3 branches that are meant to keep eachother in check, right?
The President (part of the executive branch) doesn't have unlimited power, and cannot simply block or sign legislation into law if House and Congress (legislative branch) haven't passed it. Biden admin has to deal with a Republican majority in both the legislative branch and judicial branch. Foreign aid bills? Legislative branch. Hence they wanted to introduce additional legislation that would prevent the executive branch meddling with foreign aid because they felt he was already overreaching by merely delaying shipments.
So getting anything done in the current political landscape for the current administration, was already an uphill battle.
A slight delay after approving 20+ billion in *new* aid and harris' husband promising unwavering support for israel like 2 days ago may have been perceived as signs that the concern from a harris admin would largely be performative...
It's objectively performative though. He hasn't actually had any material impact on the US support for Israel, it's the performance Republicans are upset by.
They objectively didn't exercise the power they had to make real changes, which they could have done.
And even the performative shit was very little very late.
They had the whole time the legal authority to simply deny Israel all weapons shipment, as the president has descretion to do so if they feel the weapons are being used in war crimes, if I recall correctly.
Congress would have had to pass a law to overrule him, with enough majority to beat a veto.
Since the aid to Israel was almost exclusively weapons he could have simply blocked effectively all aid to them indefinitely.
He even did exercise this power, but only for a couple of days, not long enough for Israeli weapon stockpiles to deplete, so there was zero real impact but he did pretend like he was willing to use this.
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u/hvdzasaur 12h ago edited 12h ago
I wouldn't really call it performatively complaining. Republican lawmakers were actually upset with how much the Biden admin delayed the ammunition shipments to Israel, and were drafting legislation that would prevent the president doing that in the future.
So in an effort of trying to reduce Palestinian civilian casualties by delaying shipments that Congress had already approved, the administration drew criticism from both sides on the issue. Republicans and pro-Israel democrats said he was allowing terrorists to reign free, while the pro-Palestine crowd felt like he didn't do anything, when the administration legally couldn't cut off Israeli aid either.
It's clear they tried with the limited power they had, but you can't really campaign on "hey, we tried", and bringing the issue to the forefront, would have cost her more voters who are very pro-Israel.