President Joe Biden’s crucial press conference, which was pushed back twice on Thursday, was dubbed by all the White House spokespersons as his “Big Boy” appearance, following his devastatingly demented showing in the debate with Donald Trump and one TV and several radio interviews where the questions posed to him were softball, and at least twice dictated by the White House. So, even though it’s so sad to associate the 81-year-old leader of the free world with the term “big boy,” this is what his people called him.
So, one of the statements Big Boy Biden made about halfway into the press conference was about the war in Gaza and his administration’s involvement there: “Israel was occasionally less than cooperative.” Biden added that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “war cabinet is one of the most conservative war cabinets in the history of Israel, and there’s no ultimate answer other than the two-state solution here.”
He also reverted to his favorite anecdote about sitting down with PM Golda Meir sometime in the 1970s, and this time he added Yitzhak Rabin to the episode, calling him her assistant. Biden has told so many versions of this story, even though he clearly doesn’t remember what really took place there (for a full discussion of this hazy moment in history, do click “Biden’s Independence Day Message: Israeli Democracy Resilient (Like I Told Golda)”).
Here’s a list of Biden’s guffaws Thursday:
- Just before the big boy press gaggle, at the NATO summit, he called Ukraine President Zelenskyy “President Putin.”
- At the gaggle, he called VP Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump.”
- He took questions from a prepared list of reporters, for fear he’d get their names wrong.
- He said Putin “won the war” in Ukraine.
He also said he had been given three “intense” neurological exams and was ready to take another if his doctors said so, and admitted that “Others could beat Trump, too.”
Biden outlined his proposal for Gaza’s future after the conflict ends. Needless to say, this topic has been a persistent source of disagreement between his administration and the Israeli leadership in recent months.
“It would be a process for a two-state solution. We get the Arab nations – particularly from Egypt all the way to Saudi Arabia – to be in a position where they would cooperate in the transition so they could keep the peace in Gaza, without Israeli forces staying in Gaza,” he stated.
“The day-after in Gaza has to be the end. The end of the day has to be no occupation by Israel in the Gaza Strip, as well as the ability for us to access, get in and out as rapidly as you can for all that’s needed there,” he continued.
And then came his big boy moment of gripe: “I’ve been disappointed with the things that I put forward have not succeeded as well. Like the port we attached from Cyprus – I was hopeful that would be more successful.”
Biden concluded the Israel portion of his BBPC (Big Boy Press Conference) by saying:
“But that’s why when I went to Israel immediately after the massacres that occurred at the hands of Hamas, that’s the one thing I said to the Israelis, and I met with the war cabinet and with Bibi. ‘Don’t make the same mistake America after bin Laden, there’s no need to occupy anywhere, go after the people who did the job.
“I said, ‘Don’t make this mistake, don’t think that’s what you should be doing, is doubling down. We’ll help you find the bad guys, Sinwar and company, and all this criticism about how I wouldn’t provide the weapons they needed. I’m not providing 2,000-pound bombs. They cannot be used in Gaza or any populated area without causing great human tragedy and damage,” he said, one day after his administration lifted the hold on half of the paused shipment.
“But remember what happened when you had the attack on Israel from Iran, with rockets and ballistic missiles. I was able to unite the Arab nations, as well as Europe, and nothing happened. Nothing got hurt. it’s an incredible lesson,” he continued.
“There’s a lot of things in retrospect I wish I had been able to convince the Israelis to do, but the bottom line is we have a chance now. It’s time to end this war. it doesn’t mean walking away from going after Sinwar and Hamas. There is growing dissatisfaction in the West Bank from the Palestinians about Hamas. Hamas is not popular now. there’s a lot of moving parts, I just need to keep moving and make sure we do as much as we can toward a cease-fire.”
God help us. Please vote for Trump.
