Setting red lines is all very well, as long as you follow through when they are crossed. President Joe Biden knows that all too well.

But he also knows that if he follows through on this big new red line of withholding offensive weapons for Israel it could cost him dearly domestically.

The push-me-pull-you balance of geopolitics and domestic politics is intensely difficult right now for the American president.

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I’ll break this down into two parts. The politics in a moment. First the challenges of red lines.

Western leaders throw them down in interviews, like Mr Biden’s pronouncement on CNN last night, as unequivocal threats. “Cross the line, if you dare!” is the rhetoric.

But too often they turn out to be flawed tools of geo-political diplomacy.

Barack Obama set a chemical weapons red line with Syria’s Bashar al Assad in 2012. He walked right through it.

Vladimir Putin remembered that when he walked through a red line Mr Biden had set on Ukraine in 2021. Mr Putin invaded. The rest is history.

Every red line is distinct, of course, and they vary in terms of the gravity of the event they are seeking to prevent.

But the principle behind laying them is the same, as is the message set when they are crossed.

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Biden’s frustration with Netanyahu

Over the past six months, as Israel has sought to defeat Hamas in Gaza, President Biden didn’t think he’d need to lay out red lines. After all, Israel is one of America’s closest allies.

Instead, the Biden administration thought gentle diplomacy and frank back-channels with a “close friend of America” would do the trick.

But gradually, as Mr Biden and the Netanyahu government increasingly diverged on protecting civilians and a plan for “the day after” in Gaza, a red line began to appear – Rafah.

This has become Mr Biden’s red line for Israel.

The American president has repeatedly made clear his opposition to Mr Netanyahu’s insistence on a ground invasion of the southern Gazan city (Mr Netanyahu’s own red line) where about 1.4 million people are living, half of them under 18.

The Israeli military has not (yet) moved into Rafah city but is instead concentrating its operations to the east of the city and around the crossing to Egypt.

That fact has allowed the Biden administration to claim its red line hasn’t yet been crossed. “They didn’t describe it as a major ground operation,” spokesman John Kirby said this week.

Sometimes, red lines are smashed through. Sometimes, they are gradually chipped away at.

To counter the chipping Mr Netanyahu has been doing for weeks, Mr Biden hardened his red line.

“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” he told CNN.

A significant admission

That he has personally admitted what was already a fact – that American weapons have killed thousands of civilians – is significant.

But there is important nuance in his red line.

He’s talking about stopping the delivery of offensive weapons for the type of operations that have flattened much of Gaza and could do the same to Rafah.

He is not threatening to cut Israel off from all US weapons, of course not.

Defensive weapons to counter Iranian proxy rockets will keep coming. As will long-range weapons and jets to counter Iran. None of that will stop being delivered.

Still, it’s a big shift for Biden. It’s not been done before and symbolically for Israel, in the middle of its longest and most critical war, it looks terrible.

The domestic political risks

And that brings us to the domestic politics of all this.

For every lever of influence Mr Biden pulls (and he’s seen they have their limited use) there is a domestic political calculus.

Pretty much all Republicans are against every lever; they want nothing less than unequivocal support for Israel.

More than that though – a significant number of his own Democrats will also be uneasy about America limiting weapons for Israel.

But critical voters in key states are very pro-Palestine. President Biden isn’t oblivious to their cry “Genocide Joe!”

It is a perilous political push-me-pull-you and the election is six months away.

A mother from Wrexham has been awarded more than half a million pounds in damages for injuries she suffered during childbirth.

Maternity services make up more negligence claims and payments than any other hospital department – and campaigners say it reflects underfunding and overworked staff.

It took Amy Stead, 37, nearly three years to fall pregnant, but childbirth left her with injuries that will last a lifetime.

During her labour in 2019, she suffered a tear so severe it left her with a permanent stoma. What is worse, it was not spotted soon enough.

“It turned out that I had a hole between my vagina and rectum, but it had been completely missed,” Ms Stead said.

She said her obstetrician was “in such a rush to leave” that she missed the injury.

She added: “Had she taken more time and care over what she was doing… she may have seen it, and they could have put me to sleep and repaired it properly.”

Ms Stead suffered from PTSD and was in pain for a year after her son was born.

“It felt like all the joy had been sucked out of having my first baby,” she said.

She decided to sue her hospital, an incredibly difficult decision as it was where she worked. After a five-year litigation, she has now been awarded £575,000 in damages.

Figures for England for 2022/2023 show maternity services made up 13% of clinical negligence claims, more than any other department.

Last year, the NHS spent £1.1bn on maternity negligence payments. To put this in context, the budget for maternity services in England is £3bn.

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Litigation lawyers say damages are often high because of the physical and psychological impact the injuries have.

Ruth Powell, head of clinical negligence at the law firm Hugh James, says litigation is “gruelling” for people, with a “really high bar” to prove a claim.

Many mothers never seek legal advice.

“Middle class, white women who have the confidence and the background to challenge things, it’s much easier for them,” said Ms Powell.

“There’s a massive number of women, perhaps English isn’t their first language… they don’t talk to anybody about it.”

Campaigners are calling for change.

Chair of the Birth Trauma Association, Rachael McGrath, was awarded damages after her twins were born.

She blames “massive underfunding and staffing issues” for the high levels of litigation.

“Why is it easier to pay out on maternity litigation than invest from the bottom up?” asked Ms McGrath.

“We are looking at staff, a workforce, who are compassion-fatigued because they are not supported appropriately in their roles and that is leading to trauma and an unsafe system.”

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A spokesperson for the Department for Health and Social Care said: “We’re committed to ensuring all women receive safe and compassionate care from maternity services and we’ve made progress in improving outcomes.

“We are determined to further improve maternity services. That’s why it is prioritised in our Women’s Health Strategy 2024.“

Ms Stead is relieved her litigation is over and hopes sharing her story will help other mums suffering from birth trauma.

“No amount of money can change that or make that better, but it certainly helps,” she said.

“But you shouldn’t have to go through that to have children, it’s not normal.”

Southern California truck spotters will have plenty of electric semi trucks to watch out for as Amazon adds fifty Class 8 EVs to its commercial fleet.

The fully electric Volvo semi trucks purchased will haul both heavy cargo containers and customer package loads in Amazon’s first- and middle-mile operations in California. The trucks will join the hundreds of last-mile electric vans from Ford and Rivian that are already delivering packages across the golden state.

These are the first-ever electric trucks in the company’s ocean freight operations, also known as drayage operations. They’ve already started hitting the road at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, with a dozen expected to be in service by the end of the year.

“We’re proud to launch our largest fleet of electric heavy-duty vehicles yet in California,” said Udit Madan, vice president of Worldwide Amazon Operations. “Heavy-duty trucking is a particularly difficult area to decarbonize, which makes us all the more excited to have these vehicles on the road today. We’ll use what we learn from deploying these vehicles as we continue to identify and invest in solutions to reduce emissions in our transportation network, and to impact sustainability in the trucking industry more broadly.”

Amazon picks Volvo VNR Electric semi

Amazon’s electric semi of choice this time is the Volvo VNR Electric. These class 8 trucks have a range of up to 275 miles with a gross combined vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 82,000 pounds. The heavy-duty Volvo trucks ship with a number of safety features that will be familiar to Volvo Car owners, including active collision mitigation, blind-spot detection, lane departure warning, lane keeping assist, and adaptive cruise control.

Altogether, the Volvo VNRs Amazon just added to its fleet are projected to travel more than 1 million miles each year with zero harmful carbon and diesel particulate emissions coming out of their exhaust pipes.

Electrek’s Take

On the one hand, Amazon is making a big deal out of buying electric drayage trucks – which isn’t really big a deal in 2024, since that’s a legal requirement at this point. You literally can’t buy a new, internal combustion drayage truck in California as of this year.

That said, I’m a “celebrate every positive change” kind of guy, and the people who live and work around Amazon’s operations will be literally and figuratively breathing easier with these trucks in operation. As such, I’m willing to give California Governor Gavin Newsom a victory lap.

“California continues to lead the way in setting world-leading climate goals. No other state has created the kind of environment where Amazon and other businesses can lead on sustainability and take major steps forward like deploying this fleet of electric trucks,” said Gavin, in a statement. “California’s climate action continues powering our economy and creating jobs.”

SOURCE | IMAGES: Amazon.