“Biden is back” is the new buzz in the aftermath of the President’s foreign policy-heavy press conference. But what of it? Last night the commander in chief reminded us why President Obama’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, said that for decades Mr. Biden has been “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue.” On Thursday, the president reverted to a theme that could explain why: when in doubt, he is eager to disarm.  

“It’s time to end this war,” Mr. Biden blathered when asked last night about Gaza. Who wouldn’t want wars to end? Yet, misdiagnosing causes and putting the onus on us, rather than our enemies, has marked Mr. Biden’s career of foreign policy error. Contrary to a gushing video clip of Rachel Maddow, which was reposted on X by the Biden campaign, the president failed spectacularly to show an “impressive command of the issues.” 

According to Mr. Biden, what stands in the way of ending the Gaza war is “one of the most conservative war cabinets in the history of Israel.” In reality, members of that cabinet are the least hawkish of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. Bibi in the end declined to allow Washington’s bete noires of Israeli politics — ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich — into that small group of decision makers on war strategy. 

Unlike them, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a dominant war cabinet member, is a welcome interlocutor at Washington, where he is seen as counterweight within Likud to Mr. Netanyahu. Centrist opposition members, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, recently quit the war cabinet. They joined it as part of a wartime national unity arrangement after October 7. Mr. Biden is now quietly cheering on them to unseat Mr. Netanyahu. Most conservative?

Never mind mastery of details, then. Who among us, after all, hasn’t on occasion mistaken Vice President Harris for President Trump, or President Zelensky for President Putin? Yet “to put the blame on Israel for lack of progress in bringing peace to Gaza” or on “a conservative war cabinet” and not Hamas and Hezbollah is “outrageous,” a former national director of the Anti Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, writes on X. And he is a Biden admirer. 

It’s true that Israelis hotly debate the amount of concessions the country can afford making to free 120 hostages, including dead bodies. At least eight of the 120 are American citizens, five of whom are presumed alive. Yet a visitor from Mars listening to Mr. Biden could easily conclude that Israeli “conservatives” must release the hostages, rather than the Hamas terrorists who keep them in horrid conditions deep in tunnel dungeons. 

Mr. Biden boasted last night of his vision for a new Middle East. Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, would be at peace with Israel. They would control and rebuild post-war Gaza. That is almost as realistic as his vision of a new way to deliver aid to the strip, which he introduced in his State of the Union speech. Following a series of stumbles, the widely-hailed quarter of a billion dollar Gaza pier was finally scrapped this week. 

Explaining the decision to drop the ill-fated project, National Security Adviser Jacob Sullivan tells reporters that the problem turns out to be not how to deliver aid to Gaza, but how to distribute it to the needy inside the strip. Who knew? The Israelis have facilitated an unprecedented amount of aid, which Hamas cruelly exploits. The pier project was designed to highlight Israel’s insufficient care for civilians in an enemy territory.      

“My numbers are better in Israel than they are here,” Mr. Biden boasted last night. Indeed, Israelis cheered when he came visiting following October 7. Now, after his waffling, only 27 percent of them support him, according to a recent Channel 12 poll. President Trump, in contrast, polls at 48 percent in Israel. Some Democrats hope polls here will improve after last night’s presser. Yet, is “back” to Bidenism good for America and our allies?