The US finally admits Gaza is starving, but here's why Biden’s floating pier plan is, at best, a stunt

Israel’s annihilatory campaign in Gaza began almost six months ago. By now, nearly all of the 2.3 million people living in the besieged enclave struggle to find food while roughly 500,000 of them face famine-like conditions.

Approximately 30 percent of children below the age of two in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation recently warned that “famine is projected to occur anytime between now and May 2024 in the northern governorates.”

None of this has resulted from some natural disaster. The horrific conditions are the outcome of Israel’s war on Gaza and Tel Aviv’s major restrictions on aid flows into the enclave via land routes. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently explained, Gaza’s extreme situation is an “entirely man-made disaster.” Even US Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted that "100 percent of the population in Gaza is at severe levels of acute food insecurity" and that this was unprecedented. 

"Washington will probably point to this floating dock while attempting to shift blame and make the Biden administration and US lawmakers - and, by extension, the Americans who elected them - feel less responsible for facilitating and supporting Israel’s crimes in Gaza"

Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden spoke about the humanitarian catastrophes plaguing Gaza while delivering his State of the Union address. Biden claimed that Washington had been “leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza” and announced his decision to direct the US military to establish a “temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast” to “receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters”. He affirmed that this “temporary pier” would drastically increase the daily flows of humanitarian assistance into the Strip.

An estimated 1,000 US soldiers will purportedly be involved in the implementation of this floating pier plan. Though, as Biden declared in his State of the Union address, “no US boots will be on the ground” in Gaza. Soon after Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder confirmed that zero US servicemen will enter the besieged enclave while construction operations are underway.

In northern Gaza, there is a fishing seaport. But big ships can’t use it because it’s too shallow. Therefore, bringing in humanitarian assistance to Gaza by sea is a challenge. The idea of a temporary pier set up in deeper water off Gaza’s coast could, at least on paper, enable large cargo ships to offload the food, water, medicine, and so on to smaller ships that could transport such supplies to shore.

However, countless details of this floating dock plan remain unclear. There are many logistical and security challenges to overcome. For starters, this temporary pier would need approximately two months to be built while Palestinian children in the enclave are currently dying from malnutrition. As long as Israel continues its military campaign, this temporary pier, much like the airdrops of food, will come nowhere close to doing anything that can begin to effectively address Gaza’s humanitarian nightmares.

“This plan won’t be implemented for a month or two, by which time it will be too late to prevent large-scale deaths from starvation, lack of potable water, and lack of medicine,” said Dr Juan Cole, a Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, in an interview with The New Arab.

“Moreover, no mechanisms exist for the safe distribution of the food and aid,” he added.

Then there are also critical questions about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government because Israeli cooperation would be necessary. The fact that Tel Aviv has yet to agree to this floating dock adds another layer of difficulty and uncertainty to the plan.

Regardless of how the US approaches such hurdles, this temporary pier will cost a lot of money and fail to do too much to help Palestinians suffering in Gaza.

An expensive stunt

The Biden administration’s plans for this floating pier are mostly about optics and deflection. If saving Palestinians in Gaza from these humanitarian catastrophes was genuinely the White House’s goal, it would be very easy for Team Biden to pull the plug on Israel’s war and use American leverage to pressure Tel Aviv into permitting aid to enter Gaza through land routes.

“It is hard to see [this floating pier] as anything but a publicity stunt,” Dr Cole told TNA.

Other experts similarly interpret the Biden administration’s plans for a temporary pier as a distraction rather than any serious effort to help Palestinians in Gaza. This brings us to domestic politics in the US and Biden’s quest to secure another term in this year’s presidential election.

“The Biden administration is attempting a balancing act for electoral purposes: Appeal to the Israel lobby by highlighting and implementing the supply of weapons, intelligence, and political support for Israel’s war on Gaza while raising the pitch of verbal sympathy for Palestinians victims and engage in dramatic aid gestures in order not to lose Arab-American and liberal votes in the upcoming presidential election,” said Dr Nabeel Khoury, the former deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Yemen, in a TNA interview.

"Countless details of this floating dock plan remain unclear. There are many logistical and security challenges to overcome. For starters, this temporary pier would need approximately two months to be built while Palestinian children in the enclave are currently dying from malnutrition"

“The floating pier, coming on the heels of the food airdrops, is an expensive stunt of questionable viability and value to would-be aid recipients,” added Khoury.

“Given the international pressure - and growing domestic pressure—to take action and stop Israel's ongoing war on Gaza, the White House likely wants to respond to those pressures without actually changing policy,” Dr Assal Rad, a Middle East scholar, told TNA.

“The international community has overwhelmingly supported a ceasefire which the Biden administration has rejected for months. At the same time, Biden's policy on Gaza has prompted protests across the country, disruptions at his public events, and a growing ‘uncommitted’ voting campaign that risks him losing voters with the presidential election only [eight] months away,” commented Dr Rad.

“At best, the plan for a maritime corridor is a way to deflect from the administration's failings in Gaza, so that they can appear to be doing something. At worst, there is another purpose for the pier that has not been made public.”

Indeed, there are valid concerns that Israel might entrench its military presence in central Gaza under the banner of providing the necessary “security” for this floating dock’s protection. Additionally, the Israelis might even use this floating pier as a means to facilitate an exit of Palestinians from Gaza as part of the “Nakba 2.0” agenda.

Lastly, another risk to consider is how this plan will fit into the battle of narratives surrounding the Gaza war. Washington will probably point to this floating dock while attempting to shift blame and make the Biden administration and US lawmakers - and, by extension, the Americans who elected them - feel less responsible for facilitating and supporting Israel’s crimes in Gaza. That outcome is entirely possible given all the delusion and misinformation in the US concerning Israel-Palestine.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics.

Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero