The Biden administration "didn't stumble blindly into ignoring the conflict. It was an affirmative decision, perhaps a calculated risk," said Lucy Kurtzer-Ellenbogen, director of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, noting the "little political and foreign policy benefit to gain by investing significant capital" in addressing the decades-old conflict. But while the U.S. didn't light the "fire," she added, "the U.S. by its actions can either be in the realm of ignoring, fueling -- and I think sometimes ignoring is fueling -- or fire-fighting, as it's having to do right now. If we don't want to find ourselves in that constant pendulum swing from fire-fighting to ignoring, I think we need to be in the business of active fire-proofing and that is going to be the question for the administration as it moves forward," she said. To critics on the left, Biden has been setting his firehose on the wrong side, defending Israel's response and declining to call Palestinian leadership. "This is not about both sides. This is about an imbalance of power," said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on the House floor Thursday. "The president and many other figures this week stated that Israel has a right to self defense ... But do Palestinians have a right to survive?"