Book Names McGurk as Biden Gaza Policy's 'Central Villain' — SkimNews
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- Akbar Shahid Ahmed's 300-page book 'Crossing the Red Line' documents how a shrinking Biden inner circle refused to restrain Israel, ignoring their own experts and U.S. laws barring military support to countries impeding American aid deliveries.
- Brett McGurk, the NSC's Middle East coordinator, is portrayed as the book's 'central villain' — a career War on Terror bureaucrat who discouraged ceasefire pressure to pursue a grand bargain linking Saudi-Israeli normalization to a U.S.-Saudi mutual defense pact.
- Antony Blinken empowered officials willing to accept Israeli claims about civilian casualty avoidance, while Jake Sullivan privately cast doubt on images of starving children even as international monitors confirmed famine was spreading.
- USAID Administrator Samantha Power was sidelined from Gaza meetings by Sullivan in December 2023 after raising internal objections to the 'bearhug' strategy, alongside U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
- After the November 2024 election, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines distanced herself from staffers pressing for an inquiry into whether Israeli conduct violated international law; the intelligence community declined even to brief on the issue.
- Jon Finer argued this month that resigning over Gaza would have been 'self-serving,' and none of the named former officials have publicly renounced the policy or fully placed blame on Biden.
- The April 2024 World Central Kitchen killings briefly broke the pattern — Biden upbraided Netanyahu and forced crossings open, while Sullivan told an aid representative the U.S. had let Israel 'drive drunk' — but the bearhug returned within weeks when the U.S. scrambled military assets to defend Israel from an Iranian attack.
Why it matters: Ahmed's portrayal of McGurk, Sullivan, and Blinken as the officials who blocked formal war crimes findings and ceasefire pressure — rather than Biden alone — complicates any 2029 comeback for figures still eyeing senior roles. None have publicly renounced the Gaza policy, leaving the 'scapegoat Biden' narrative on shaky ground.
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