For too long, the Biden administration has tried to have it both ways in this conflict. At times, the president and his officials say all the right things about the unacceptability of Hamas’s continued reign in Gaza, and the administration’s policies have largely reflected that morally righteous and strategically sound rhetoric. And yet, the White House has also sought to placate the anti-Israel fanatics on the Democratic Party’s progressive fringes. So, the Biden administration settles on incomprehensibly convoluted positions like this one.

Sure, Hamas has to go. But Israel must limit its operational efficacy to such a degree that Hamas would be ensured of survival in one form or another. No, a temporary pause in the fighting to secure the release of hostages isn’t a ceasefire, which would be unacceptable. But if Israel doesn’t extend the pause indefinitely in deference to the logic of hostage-taking, it will encounter reputational penalties among the vaunted members of the so-called international community. And so on.

“There comes a time when you need to join the side you’re on,” said the late author and intellectual, Midge Decter. The Biden White House would do well to internalize this logic.

[Maybe they already have, and they’re choosing the terrorists. I’m not sure what more they could do to demonstrate that within the possible parameters of American politics. — Ed]