Biden objected to the Gaza blast while he was in Israel

The Damned Israeli War on the Baluchi Plane Revisited: Donald Trump’s White House Visit to the Middle East

The massacres were pure, pure evil. That there is “no excuse” for what Hamas did. That Israel has an affirmative “duty” to defend itself, not simply a passive “right.” That the United States will make good on its commitment to a Jewish state not with feeble statements of solidarity but with the surge of military force. He said in an interview with “60 Minutes” that the assault was as consequential as the Holocaust.

We need leadership from Biden because of the moral void on the right. I spent the years of Donald Trump’s presidency being hectored by a certain type of Jewish conservative who insisted that Israel had never had a better friend in the White House. Today, Trump takes a dimmer view of Netanyahu — less because of his failed performance than because he can’t forgive the prime minister for calling Biden in 2020 to congratulate him on his victory. Four days after the Hamas attacks, Trump also called Hezbollah, without reprobation, “very smart.” About Vladimir Putin, he also said, “I got along with him very good.”

The president’s visit to the region less than two weeks after Hamas massacres in Israel was not successful in stemming the anger behind the new war. Mr. Biden was going to show his support for America’s closest ally in the Middle East, as well as urging Israel to avoid civilian casualties. He was going to convey the risks of the crisis spreading beyond Gaza to leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.

The timing of the visit couldn’t be worse according to the director of counterterrorism at the Middle East Institute. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are behind the strike at the hospital in Gaza. The tensions have been inflamed beyond anything we’ve seen over the last week.”

Eventually, Air Force One departed, carrying an American president bound for Tel Aviv at a moment when Gaza was facing a humanitarian catastrophe and anger was reverberating across the Middle East.

White House officials told reporters on the tarmac that the summit in Jordan had been canceled as Air Force One sat on the tarmac. For a while, it was unclear whether the plane would go to the Middle East or not. Mr. Biden had boarded without answering questions.