President Biden's visit to Israel is intended to show support for the United States closest Middle East Ally but he's also slated to address Israeli leaders on how to prevent unnecessary civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip Secretary of State Anthony blinkin is already on the ground first Israel and today in Jordan laying that framework and ushering humanitarian Aid that had previously been blocked all part of apparent efforts to head off a wider regional conflict with the United States uniquely positioned to influence both Israel and key Arab officials as many hold on to hope of a reshaped Middle East and importantly diplomatic normalization for more insight on this war and the political players involved I'm joined by Michael Boyle an associate professor at the Rutger Camden Department of political science who focuses on terrorism and political violence Dr Mike Boyle thanks so much for joining me let me ask you first uh secretary of state blinkin is in Israel President Biden is also making a visit there what is the US foreign interest in this war so a couple things and I think part of the reason President Biden is there is to Signal the closeness of the US to Israel and backing the United States up at essentially their moment of peril but I also think there's a wider set of strategic objectives there I think the United States is also trying to ensure that what happens next in Gaza is consistent with us interests so in other words is there a plan for the administration of Gaza if there is a ground Invasion from the north what's going to happen in terms of the humanitarian Corridor so I think there's really two things going on there part of it is signaling political support signaling also okay what do we want this postwar situation to look like and how do we make sure this doesn't get out of control and become a wider Regional War what is it specifically that Hamas wants um and is there an opportunity for that to be gained at this moment in time where things stand so you know as a broad question Hamas has traditionally been an enemy of Israel and its Charter calls for the destruction of the Israeli State when we think about its its immediate tactical objectives what did it want to do in this specific raid that it essentially abducted 200 to 250 people we think there's a there's a debate over what it immediately wanted uh one thing that has come out recently from some Hamas statements is that they seem to think that this would produce a prisoner exchange and that is something that has happened in the past that you know the abduction for example of Gilead chalit from the Israeli Army years ago negotiated uh in the long run got Palestinian prisoners out of jail which was to the benefit of Hamas and they said something in the last couple days about well we thought what we would do is do this raid and we would later get you know some negotiation over prisoners and I think the real issue here is that Hamas is miscalculated they've miscalculated the degree of anger this has produced within Israel the degree which has seen as a moral threat to the state and I think what we're seeing now is situation with the situation spiraling out of control in part due to that miscalculation you mentioned moral threat and it makes me think of proportionality we have a number of un officials and other humanitarian officials who have said that Israel's response in Gaza is not proportionate that both sides have committed war crimes if you can and this is such a loaded question but the conflict there has been going on for for so many years um the occupation of Palestine um and the way with which this is viewed the fact that violence has been essentially bubbling in Corners uh of the country for for many years um and so to that extent can you speak to how this tension has been rising so I think there's there's been a longstanding obviously a longstanding conflict for a number of years between amas and Israel and more generally over the Palestinian situation over the status State West Bank in Gaza as occupied territories and the formation of eventually a two-state uh Palestinian state so I think in the larger question that's the sort of background context to it in the short run the question is when Israel strikes at GA at Hamas and Gaza are it AC attacks first proportional and secondly are they consistent with the laws of war and so you have a positive moral obligation for example to make sure that you don't deliberately Target civilians and so that's the kind of moral and political birth that's put on the Israeli Army at this point which is to say all right if you're going to go in and invade Gaza in the north are you going to do it in a way that ensures a degree civilian protection I think that's part of the miscalculation here is that from the Israeli point of view there War goal is to destroy Hamas in order to do that you essentially have to go into Gaza and you have to go into the tunnels that they have built and that is a very costly uh military effort it's going to involve a substantial commitment of resources and troops it's also very risky to do this in an urban environment I think the real question is what does Hezbollah do does Hezbollah do if you token strikes to look like it's resisting but not actually engage in a full scale Regional war or does hezb do something more substantial in which case this could spiral very quickly out of control into a Regional War where you know Israel is fighting in Gaza it's also fighting in Lebanon and that begins to draw in other actors like Iran in the United States so I think at a minimum we're looking at a ground invasion of Gaza that is going to be extremely costly I think at a maximum you're looking at a wider Regional War uh Michael Bole is associate professor of political science at rutgers Camden Michael thank you so much thank you for having me