Joe's Jetty
Joe's Jetty
Why Biden's aid plan for Gaza is a good idea
In his State of the Union Address this past Thursday, President Biden announced that the U.S. military will lead an “emergency mission” to Gaza, building a temporary pier off the Mediterranean coast to deliver humanitarian aid. The military has this capability. The Army-Navy Joint Logistics Over the Shore command can construct a floating pier for cargo ships. Smaller boats then ferry the supplies to an 1,800 foot-long, two-lane causeway jutting out from the beach for trucks to drive back and forth into Gaza. It will likely take weeks to build this facility.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a disaster and like everything else about this war, there are no easy solutions. Aid currently gets into Gaza through two border crossings in Israel and one in Egypt. Israel’s policy is that there is “no limit” on the amount of aid allowed into Gaza, though every truck needs to be inspected to prevent weapons smuggling.
Israel is accused of not delivering enough aid. Some of that criticism may well be fair. For instance, there is talk that the IDF should build a logistics hub in northern Gaza, which it controls, to more rapidly take in supplies, organize them, and control the distribution to civilians. The IDF could also quickly construct more field hospitals in the areas it controls.
We need to consider two important points. One: the amount of supplies that Gaza’s two million people need is limitless. Israel can always be accused of not supplying enough because there isn’t a point at which Gazans can say “we’re all good, no more needed!” No country can be expected to adequately supply a hostile population one-fifth its own size in the midst of a war.
The second point is that Israel doesn’t always control “the last mile” — a logistics term meaning the final delivery to the customer. Once aid goes into Gaza, much of it is turned over to UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency. Hamas either steals or takes some percentage of that aid, sometimes at gunpoint, other times with UNRWA’s active or passive cooperation. Hamas then either uses the aid for its own fighters, or sells the aid (which is supposed to be free) at exorbitant prices to civilians.
The obvious strategy is to effect a delivery system that bypasses UNRWA and Hamas. That is proving very difficult. Last week saw a tragedy as Israel tried to maintain control over a food convoy in northern Gaza. Thousands of people swarmed the trucks, and perhaps a hundred were trampled to death in the frenzy. Several civilians were also killed by Israeli troops when they approached a group of soldiers and failed to heed the order to stay away. They were not, as first reported, gunned down by the IDF deliberately firing into the crowd of civilians. Remember that Hamas is deeply embedded within civilian life, dressing and acting like civilians until the last second when they pull out their guns. IDF troops are thus wary of groups of civilians coming towards them, especially when they refuse to stop when ordered (there remains confusion over exactly how this incident unfolded and we don’t yet have all the details).
A couple days ago, five civilians were reported killed during an airdrop of aid from either the United States or Jordan (both of whom are denying it was their aid). These airdrops are another effort to deliver aid directly to civilians.
These two incidents highlight the challenge of delivering enough aid to the right people at the right place, while avoiding the UNRWA/Hamas middlemen.
Then there’s the politics of this all. Biden is desperately trying to signal to left-wing American voters that he can rein in Israel, deliver a cease-fire, and support Gazan civilians. Proving that he can dramatically scale back this conflict will firm up crucial votes in important swing states like Michigan. Thus the constant leaks about his frustrations with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Netanyahu is so hated that Biden scores points every time he criticizes the Prime Minister. I question at what point this criticism becomes counterproductive: a signal to Hamas that if they hold out during the cease-fire negotiations (as they have been), Biden will push Netanyahu to accept worse terms for Israel. There is some indication that this is happening.
In his State of the Union, Biden admonished the “Israeli leadership” (read: Netanyahu) that “humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip.” Israel does, indeed, seem to lack a plan for a program of humanitarian relief — part of a larger lack of vision for what should happen with Gaza when the war ends. The United States announced that Israel will be responsible for the security of this floating pier and causeway, keeping away both Hamas and the masses of civilians sure to surround the delivery point. But Israel is non-committal. The IDF doesn’t want to be put in the same position as last week, forced to fire on a crowd of hungry civilians.
Israelis are also deeply angry that the massive amount of humanitarian aid that is going into Gaza has not translated into any proven benefit for the hostages, or even, for most of the captives, proof that they are alive. There is still no hard evidence that a January deal to deliver medicine yielded treatment for the hostages. Israeli protestors have tried to block aid trucks near the border crossings. They weren’t successful — the IDF removed the protestors to let the aid through — but it highlights the frustration.
So while the rest of the world insists that Israel isn’t doing enough … many Israelis think they are doing too much. Israelis argue that Hamas should release hostages in exchange for humanitarian supplies, and are tired of the expectation that Israel is supposed to single-handedly manage this challenge while getting nothing in return, and international condemnation to boot. We can argue about whether that amounts to using aid as a “bargaining chip.” Yet it needs to be repeated that Hamas has an obligation to release the hostages unconditionally (and not as bargaining chips), and that doing so is the quickest way to scale back this war and provide relief for Gaza’s civilians.
So I welcome Biden’s pier (Joe’s Jetty?!). Israel cannot manage the humanitarian crisis alone, even if it was at the top of Netanyahu’s to-do list. Israel cannot turn over aid to UNRWA and Hamas, but neither can the IDF always guard the aid, as we saw with last week’s tragedy. Other nations needs to shoulder more responsibility (and, as the airdrop mishap shows, realize how difficult this is). More aid is needed. As importantly, that aid needs to be defended from Hamas. Yet as we’ve seen, this places the IDF in a precarious position. A pier controlled by the U.S. military is an excellent start.
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Picture of the Day
Speaking of piers, here is the ancient port of Jaffa as a rainbow hovers above the windswept Israeli flag at center. Archaeological evidence shows an active port here going back 7,000 years — a couple millennia before the pyramids were even built! It’s still used today as a small fishing and recreational harbor, and is a popular tourist spot for food, art, parks, museums, and iconic views of Tel Aviv.
Photo: Jason Harris
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