Over two weeks ago, Genocide Joe Biden made a major statement claiming that “Israel has offered a comprehensive new proposal. It’s a roadmap to an enduring ceasefire and the release of all hostages.” And that “For months, people all over the world have called for a ceasefire. Now it’s time to raise your voices and to demand that Hamas come to the table, agrees to this deal, and ends this war that they began.”

On June 10, Secretary of State Blinken claimed, “If you want a cease-fire, press Hamas to say yes. If you want to alleviate the terrible suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, press Hamas to say yes. If you want to get all the hostages home, press Hamas to say yes.” Later that week, Blinken told the New York Times that Israel’s position was “extremely generous,” while Hamas keeps trying to add things to the deal that Israel didn’t propose. 

In fact, Hamas has not rejected the proposal but has expressed interest, while asking for clarifications and making counter-proposals—which is what happens when enemies negotiate. And despite Biden’s claims that this proposal comes from Israel, Netanyahu has never actually come right out to say so. So the notion that Hamas is the principal obstacle to negotiating a ceasefire is bullshit.

Genocide Joe Is a Mass Murderer, Not a “Peacemaker”!

Let’s pull back the lens a little further. What is going on in Gaza is not a “war” started by Hamas on October 7. Israel seized on Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel—which included the war crimes of taking hostages and the murder of civilians—to launch a one-sided massacre to crush Hamas, but even more fundamentally to attempt a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem—that is, an inability for the Palestinian people to survive as a people in the historic homeland of Palestine—whether through murder, exile, imprisonment, even more brutal oppression… or all of the above.

And Genocide Joe Biden is not leading the charge (!?) of “people all over the world” who are demanding a ceasefire! To begin with, Biden’s own UN Ambassador had vetoed three previous ceasefire resolutions, saying the time was not yet right. During that time Biden poured in the bombs and missiles that have enabled Israel to kill at least 37,813 Palestinian people as of June 15. Biden backed Israel in imposing a chokehold on Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people are starving to death. 

“Genocide Joe” is both trying to shine up the tarnished image of the U.S. around the world, while he blames Hamas for any delays in this phony ceasefire plan and tries to nudge Israel into going along with the U.S. plan on ending the conflict. 

Israel, for its part—at this time—seems to have a different plan on what needs to happen.

Covering for Israeli Genocide, Nudging Netanyahu

One of the big contradictions in Biden and Blinken’s “narrative” of “Israel’s “generous” proposal and Hamas’ "stalling” is that up to now no representative of the Israeli government will take “credit” for what Biden says is an “Israeli” ceasefire proposal. In fact, in the words of one veteran analyst and correspondent, “Hamas leaders have, in general terms, publicly endorsed a deal for a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages… [while the] Israeli government, meanwhile, has agreed to it—or at least the White House insists they have—but notably has not endorsed it publicly.” (emphasis added)

So, why is Biden claiming this is a proposal from Israel?

For one thing, he is trying to portray Israel as (again, in Blinken’s words) “seeking peace,” hoping that the world will not notice as Israel continues to rampage through Gaza. In short, he is providing cover for Israel.

But there is another dynamic at play as well. The U.S. has a strategic plan for a regional pact between Saudi Arabia, Israel and the U.S. in opposition to Iran and its proxies in the region (the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” of the Yemeni group the Houthis, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, some of the independent Shia militias in Iraq, and Hamas). Iran, in turn, is aligned with the U.S. imperialist rivals China and Russia. So long as the war in Gaza rages, some of the Arab regimes which the U.S. relies on—like Saudi Arabia or Egypt—judge that signing a pact and working in concert with Israel to run Gaza might be politically explosive.

In other words, Biden and the Democrats see Israel’s ongoing, undisguised mass murder in Gaza as, at this point, unnecessarily getting in the way of global strategic objectives in maintaining U.S. domination of a planet of exploitation and oppression. And defending that position in the face of challenges from global rivals. 

By publicizing a document which at some point was approved by the Israeli war cabinet—but which is fiercely opposed by Netan-Nazi’s main allies—the U.S. hoped to somehow pressure Israel into going along with it. 

Israel Demands that a “Ceasefire” Declare Its “Right” to Carry Out Genocide 

But Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu (Netan-Nazi) has continued to insist that Israel will only agree to a “ceasefire” that guarantees its ability to carry out "destruction of Hamas's military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel." And he has openly declared that "The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter." (emphasis added)

In other words, Israel will not agree to the phased, permanent ceasefire Biden is claiming is on the table with Israeli support until Hamas is destroyed. And not just its military capability, but essentially all civilian infrastructure ranging from health administration to aid distribution. 

In his May 31 speech, Biden asserted that “Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another October 7th, which—one of the Israelis’ main objective in this war and, quite frankly, a righteous one.” Translated: “Israel has achieved its ‘righteous’ objective of ‘defending itself’ as a genocidal, Jewish-supremacist, apartheid state, through mass murder, famine, terror, and destruction. And now it is time to dial back the openly genocidal slaughter and move on.”

But the dominant forces in Israel’s government are not going for that. Most essentially, as has been pointed to in previous revcom.us coverage, Netan-Nazi openly says that Israel’s objective is that “Gaza [not Hamas] will never pose a threat to Israel.”

Think about that. Gaza is a geographical area. By itself, that strip of land does not pose a threat to Israel. That’s not what Netan-Nazi is talking about. What Netan-Nazi means is that the Palestinian people in Gaza must be so locked down, starved, terrorized, murdered, and put in some of the most horrific conditions imaginable so that they can never, in any form, pose a “threat” to their oppression, extermination, and exile by a state built on and maintained through genocidal ethnic cleansing.

It is very possible that Israel may intend to reoccupy Gaza itself and bring down an even worse hell, once again forcing people to leave historic Palestine, before Israel even considers turning over any “authority” to a group which included Palestinians and representatives of Arab regimes, no matter how “cooperative” they were with U.S.-Israeli orders. In any case, the fact is that Israel still has not clearly and unambiguously claimed the plan as its own and continues to insist that Hamas must be destroyed and “Gaza must no longer pose a threat” as a condition for “peace.” 

Why Is Biden Sticking with Israel?

For now, Israel’s agenda could throw a wrench into Biden’s strategy of moving “the Palestine issue” back to the bottom of the agenda in the Middle East in order to deal with the regional and global challenges to the U.S. empire we briefly discussed earlier.

But here’s the rub: Israel is a key link in enforcing U.S. domination of this world of exploitation and oppression. In the words of one high-level former U.S. diplomat, Biden’s calculation is that if he did the “kinds of things in terms of leaning on the Israeli side” to impose the terms Biden wants for a ceasefire (like actually cutting off the flow of genocidal weapons) it “would entail a higher political price than the losses [from Israel not going along] as the war continues." 

In other words, Biden could conceivably pressure Israel by cutting off arms for real, or by refusing to support them at the International Court of Justice against charges of genocide. But at this point Biden sees it as more important strategically that the U.S. be seen as solidly supporting Israel than forcing Netanyahu to go along with this ceasefire plan. Israel is too essential to the U.S. as a bastion of its empire to risk an open rupture with it; so for now, the U.S. is attempting to “nudge them along.”

Bob Avakian (BA) cuts to the core of why that is, and what needs to be done, in his REVOLUTION dispatch #7:

Why is Biden, and basically the entire government and ruling class of the U.S., supporting Israel in carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people, before the whole world? Here is the answer to that crucial question:

This is not because of “the power of the Jewish lobby”—or because of some ignorant, ridiculous and outrageous notion that “Jews are controlling everything.” It is because Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”). And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world…

It’s the system! The system of capitalism-imperialism that Biden serves. The system he has to serve—the system that anybody and everybody has to serve if they want to hold office, and especially “high office,” like president, within this system. That is why Biden is doing what he’s doing—what all these politicians are doing—above and beyond their more narrow personal interests.

It’s the system! This system of capitalism-imperialism that embodies and enforces white supremacy, patriarchal male supremacy and other brutal oppression—this system resting on ruthless life-stealing exploitation of masses of people in this country and literally billions of people worldwide, including more than 150 million children—all enforced with massive violence and destruction, of people and the environment, posing a very real threat to the future and the existence of humanity.

This system that needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time, through an actual revolution.