Benjamin Netanyahu has something in common with Garth Brooks -- he has 'friends' in low places. In an interview with Time Magazine, Joe Biden addressed a number of issues, although just how much Biden addressed them may be up for some debate. Biden insists that he is one of Israel's greatest friends, and at least in the days after October 7, Biden appeared to have determination to act like a friend.

These days, however, Biden's party has fractured on the war that Hamas started with those brutal massacres, rapes, and kidnappings. So Biden is tossing his "friends" under the bus today by quasi-accusing them of "war crimes," and quasi-accusing Netanyahu of prolonging the war to keep his grasp on power:

Asked if Israeli forces have committed war crimes in Gaza, Biden says, “It’s uncertain.” From the start, the Administration knew Israel was pushing the limits of legal warfare, the Washington Post and others have reported. The conflict is driving a wedge between the U.S. and its allies. On May 31, Biden laid out a phased cease-fire plan that would end the war and secure the release of hostages. He has continued to pursue the complicated regional deal with Saudi Arabia. Some close to Biden say the only holdout to the broader pact is Netanyahu. The President declines to say as much, but when asked by TIME if Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political reasons, Biden admits, “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.”

Hugh Hewitt is aghast:

My God. @JoeBiden gave an interview to @Time (of all people) and despite softball after softball, he did a faceplant among his ramblings. Asked if Israel had committed war crimes, the @POTUS replied: "The answer is it's uncertain and has been investigated by the Israelis…

— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) June 4, 2024

It's not a faceplant. Biden has hinted at both points for weeks now, hoping to box Netanyahu into a political position where he would have to accept Biden administration demands to end the war so that Biden can save ... Michigan. The irony and hypocrisy of accusing Netanyahu of calculating policy on the basis of keeping his office is breathtaking, but it is no mistake. 

In fairness, Biden did mention Hamas' war crimes, although Time didn't see fit to include it in its report. Readers have to find the transcript to find Biden's full answer to the "war crimes" question, which still is pretty bad:

More broadly, from the intelligence in the evidence you've seen, either currently or in the last months, have Israeli forces committed war crimes in Gaza?

Biden: The answer is it's uncertain and has been investigated by the Israelis themselves. The ICC is something that we don’t, we don't recognize. But one thing is certain, the people in Gaza, the Palestinians have suffered greatly, for lack of food, water, medicine, etc. And a lot of innocent people have been killed. But it is—and a lot of it has to do not just with Israelis, but what Hamas is doing in Israel as we speak. Hamas is intimidating that population. I went over right after that attack on the Israelis. What they did was—exceeded anything I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot. Tying mothers and daughters together with rope and pouring kerosene on it and burning them to death. That kind of thing, attempting to intimidate. And it is dastardly.

Well, Hamas is doing a lot more than "intimidating" the Israelis, and for that matter, more than "intimidating" Gazans. Gazans elected Hamas to run that enclave in 2006 and have given it tremendous support, especially in the immediate aftermath of October 7. Gazans wanted the destruction of Israel and cheered the war, right up to the time it arrived on their doorsteps. Now they're complaining about "collective punishment," a term that thankfully does not come up in the transcript, when in reality they are experiencing the consequences of waging war on one's neighbor. 

And that is what is so infuriating about Biden's "war crimes" accusation. This is war, not a 'punishment,' and it's a war that Hamas and the Gazans have waged for the last two decades. They routinely attack Israel, even during so-called cease-fires; they have rained rocket and missile fire on Israel on a near-constant basis for the last eighteen years, aimed indiscriminately at civilian populations. Not one time has Biden or the media held Hamas and the Gazans to the standard being applied to the Israelis in a war the Gazans started, even when Biden keeps insisting that the Gazans and Palestinians deserve statehood. 

And Israel does do all it can to limit civilian casualties. The IDF takes discipline seriously and punishes those who violate it, even mistakenly. Israel might expect its enemies to ignore this and validate Hamas' human-shield strategies (war crimes themselves) to slander Israel. With "friends" like Biden, though, who needs enemies?

Finally, the Time interview report is a masterpiece of framing. Time offers an avalanche of exposition and self-provided context, but includes relatively little of Biden's own answers. No one expected a full Q&A format from Time in a rare-these-days Biden interview, but the passage on Israel is emblematic of the narrative enforcement Time creates in this fashion. The five paragraphs (including the one in the first excerpt) comprised 650 words. 

Care to guess how many words in this passage are direct quotes from Biden on this topic? Forty-one. The "interview" report with Biden on Middle East policy is 93.7% Time's narrative. It's very strange to slog through forests of exposition to find the rare direct quote of a president in a presidential interview. The entire report reads the same way; it's as if Biden himself was an accessory to Time's narrative building. Or, alternately, it's as though Time is trying to create a Biden that can sell on the campaign trail nearly out of whole cloth, a Biden that doesn't actually exist and who can't sell the reality of Biden to voters. 

And that may be the real faceplant. 

Also, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:

•  Is the WaPo about to shift direction? 
• Veteran newspaperman Andrew Malcolm discusses the ouster of Sally Buzbee, and reflects on the desperation of the capital's primary newspaper. Will hiring new executives from two conservative newspapers  change the WaPo's woke direction, and/or stem the bleeding? 
• Plus we'll look at the ways in which Joe Biden bungled the Donald Trump verdict, and what may come next for both nominees.  

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!