Biden officials knew they could restrain Israel in Gaza, chose not to, and are now rewriting that history
Source: Akbar Shahid Ahmed. "Joe Biden’s Team Is Rewriting Its History on Gaza." October 14, 2026. jacobin.com
The Gist
The author says Biden's top aides knew from the start that Israel's war would devastate Gaza and that the US could rein Israel in, because it did so over Lebanon. They kept the weapons and political support flowing anyway, and now claim they had no power to stop it, which the author says is a rewriting of history.
Conclusion
Senior Biden administration officials such as Blinken and McGurk knowingly enabled Israel's destruction of Gaza, which the author characterizes as genocide, despite having the leverage and early internal warnings to restrain it, and their current claims of powerlessness are a whitewash of that record.
Premises
- From the first days after October 7, officials inside the administration (e.g., Josh Paul, Lloyd Austin) raised alarms about supplying large bombs for use in densely populated Gaza, warned of collective punishment, and proposed demanding a battle plan or steering Israel toward intelligence and special operations instead of a mass invasion.
- The US demonstrably restrained Israel when it chose to: on October 11, Biden and Jake Sullivan got Israel to back down from opening a front against Hezbollah in Lebanon, showing that US leverage existed from the start.
- After the late-2023 truce collapsed, the administration reverted to a 'no daylight' or 'bear hug' policy with Israel, blamed Hamas (including with an unsupported claim about sexual assault of hostages), and made hollow promises that Israel's campaign would become lower-intensity, while Gaza City, Khan Yunis and Rafah were devastated.
- Biden publicly cast doubt on Gaza casualty figures that the State Department privately considered reliable, and has not retracted this or his 'forty beheaded babies' claim; this reflects a contradictory policy that undercut stated goals and a lifelong Zionist outlook with skepticism toward Palestinians.
- Officials such as McGurk pursued a grand regional strategy (expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia) and ignored colleagues urging a step-by-step legal, humanitarian and strategic approach.
- Current claims by senior officials that they had no idea how to use US leverage, or that Israel would have acted regardless, are contradicted by the documented internal discussions and the Lebanon precedent.
Assumptions
- Evidence of the administration's private deliberations, as reported by the author via anonymous or unnamed officials, is accurate and representative.
- The ability to restrain Israel in the Lebanon case transfers to the Gaza campaign, so the same leverage could have limited the Gaza operations.
- Continued arms transfers and diplomatic cover constitute complicity in the resulting harm.
- Israel's conduct in Gaza meets the definition of genocide (or at least atrocities for which US officials share responsibility).
- The officials' current media statements are motivated by reputation management rather than honest recollection.
- Officials who had knowledge of the risks and the means to mitigate them bear moral responsibility for not acting.