As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues, where exactly is Joe Biden?

Editorial: America needs to exert far more of its diplomatic power to stop the fighting, as it has done in the past, even if it refuses to engage directly with Hamas

The US president, Joe Biden, arrives at the White House on Monday after spending the weekend at his Delaware home (AP)

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to have desperate consequences, with Hamas missiles penetrating Israel’s defences and Benjamin Netanyahu using his “iron fist” on the people of Gaza. But the Israeli government has, so far, resisted the temptation to order a physical, troops-on-the-ground invasion, of the kind that has been launched before.

It did not work then, in terms of long-term success, and it may well be that the Israeli military has advised the cabinet accordingly. As an act of vengefulness, it has its political attractions. Mr Netanyahu is a prime example, indeed a pioneering one, of the kind of authoritarian, aggressive nationalist leader who thrives on the visible use of force, part of a group that includes the likes of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin and, until recently, Donald Trump.

Hamas, too, is guilty of its own war crimes, its pleas that it seeks to minimise collateral damage sounding hypocritical. But in terms of anything like a decisive “victory” over Hamas, an invasion of Gaza is doomed to failure, and the Israelis know it. By the same token, Hamas is not going to speed the establishment of a properly functioning Palestinian state by murdering Israeli citizens. Indeed, the more brutal the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces and the Hamas rocket commanders, the more remote anything like peace becomes.