Ok, devil's advocate time: Trump might have been onto something with his comment that Israel should "wrap it up" or whatever.
Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about Pals, but he gives all the flying ducks about public perception. I think he gets that 50K Palestinians are gonna get killed one way or another, but the trick is making sure it happens as fast as possible.
In Trump world, those 50K pals are butchered in a month, and then the world moves on and forgets. Palestinians get to move on to rebuilding or whatever. Media latches on to some stupid statement and like the dog from Up is quickly distracted and onto the next thing.
In Biden's world, the (frankly pathetic) attempt at humanitarianism is just making it take 8 months to kill 50K Pals, all the hemming and hawing, and the result is somehow worse because on top of the deaths you now have this horrendous time component that is preventing the "what's next" phase from kicking in.
If Biden isn't going to actually do jack shit to help Palestinians, then it is at least politically expedient for him to push Israel along so they get done extracting their blood toll and things can start returning to just the normal level of horrific in the Gaza strip.
Along with many others, I'd like the Biden administration to do more than they have to prevent further devastation. But let's not create a false equivalence between current policy and what Trump would be telling Israel. The Biden administration has reportedly told Israel to not assault Rafah, period. To some degree, you're right that the administration always feels a step behind, but they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. There is no policy we could choose that would appease both sides (and I don't mean Israel as one of those sides). We like to think POTUS is the most powerful person in the world, but is he really? Why can't he even get Bibi to stand down?
There just are no good solutions here, and I think what needs to be crystal clear to Israel is that there is a red line (i.e. full assault on Rafah), and if they cross it, there will be severe consequences (we pull the plug on military aid). Otherwise we're a dog that's all bark, and no bite. (To state the obvious, I don't think we're anywhere near abandoning Israel as a staunch ally, for reasons that do include pro-Israel lobbying.)
If Trump was POTUS, he would have green-lit a ground invasion of Rafah over a month ago. How do you even know that 50k deaths are inevitable any way you slice it, so it's politically preferable to get it over with quickly? For one, I think the Biden administration is trying to prevent 50k more deaths. And two, I think assaulting Rafah would open the door to Hezbollah and Iran escalating, and now you have a much more dangerous regional war that almost certainly draws in U.S. armed forces.
I don't think Gaza will be a top-4 issue for voters in November (1 and 2 are clearly the economy and the southern border). It could be important in Michigan*, but "It's the economy, stupid" will most likely be decisive across the handful of battleground states. IMHO people's
feelings about the economy will be baked in sometime this summer, and are unlikely to change a month or two before the election.
* Very sobering article centered around Dearborn:
Michigan has the power to unravel a second Biden presidency. It just might.
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