Biden Is Boxed In on Israel-Gaza, Able Only to Urge a Cease-Fire

After days of declining to call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, President Joe Biden reversed course. Whether it makes a difference on the battlefield is another matter.

Biden’s decision to show “support for a cease-fire” in a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday signaled that the U.S. was looking for more public ways to stop the fighting. But his statement -- expressing support for a halt to the deadly warfare but not demanding one outright -- showed the limits of U.S. power and Biden’s wariness of applying too much public pressure on Israel.

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