IT would be easy to assume from the words spoken by US President Joe Biden during his March 7 State of the Union address, and by US Vice-President Kamala Harris in Alabama earlier in the week, that there has been a shift in the official US stance toward Israel’s continued genocidal war in Gaza.

While former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was still telling a Berlin audience late last month that “Israel has a right to defend itself” (before being roundly heckled), Biden, in his March 7 address to Congress and the US people, said only that “Israel has a right to go after Hamas.”

Harris, speaking in Selma, Alabama, the site of the brutal attack on civil rights protesters 59 years ago, said: “There must be an immediate ceasefire for at least six weeks.”

This sounded, superficially, like tougher talk. But talk is precisely what it is. This is not a “pivot,” the overused buzzword of our time, nor is it a policy shift. It is a strategy shift.

The Biden administration is worried about a lot of things, not least of which is the 81-year-old president’s age and whether this will cost Democrats the White House in November. But what it is most worried about right now is dwindling public support over the administration’s paradoxical approach to Israel’s war in Gaza. This is all about votes.

During his State of the Union, Biden tossed a placatory bone to his doubters and critics — the planned construction of a temporary pier off the Gaza coast to receive aid ships “bringing food, water, medicine and temporary shelters.”

This came in response to widespread criticism of the pathetically inadequate US aerial aid drops  — 38,000 meals for two million people — that have done little to stem the tide of starvation among Gaza’s trapped and war-torn population.

But what Biden failed to address, nor back away from, was the ongoing provision by the US of thousands of lethal munitions that enable Israel’s continued slaughter of Palestinian civilians.

“Israel’s war zone awash in US arms,” ran a front-page headline last week in the Washington Post.

You cannot feed people with one hand while bombing them with the other. At least 77 per cent of Democrats and even a majority of Independents (69 per cent) and Republicans (56 per cent) support a call for a permanent ceasefire, according to recent polling. The US failure to halt Israel’s genocidal assault is not assuaged by further token relief efforts. Window dressing blinds no-one.

As independent senator Bernie Sanders declared: “It is absurd and hypocritical to criticise Netanyahu’s inhumane war in one breath, and provide him another $10 billion to continue that war in the next.”

This view was evidenced most dramatically in the recent state primaries, first in Michigan, where 100,000 Democratic voters chose the “uncommitted” option on their ballot.

On “Super Tuesday,” March 5, when 15 states held primaries, eight of those offered the “uncommitted” choice to Democratic voters. The highest tally came from Minnesota, with 19 per cent voting uncommitted, followed by North Carolina with 12.7 per cent and Massachusetts with 9.4 per cent, a not insignificant hit.

Sanders also warned in a post on X that “the US is complicit in this nightmare. It’s time for the US to stop ASKING Israel to do the right thing. We must TELL them.”

Meanwhile, Biden insisted on Thursday that “Hamas could end this conflict today.” In reality, it is Joe Biden who could.

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland.