The Biden administration is abandoning Israel.
This is more than an attempt to play both sides of the conflict, and the suggestion that the White House is only softening in its support is wishful thinking. President Biden is turning up the public pressure for Israel to accept a ceasefire and abandon its goal of eradicating Hamas.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also seemingly forgotten his visit to the massacred southern border towns, warning Israel that they are already running out of “credit” in the war against Hamas.
This was, however, predictable. This administration shares Barack Obama’s preference for a nice narrative over practical, necessary realities. We live in a time of short memories and weak stomachs, and Western society now sees strength as sinful. Masculinity is toxic, American ideals of liberty and exceptionalism are dangerous, and tolerance of the most intolerant is expected. Nothing is more at odds with our country’s cultural illness than a war where men have gone into battle to defend their women and children against barbarism with one goal in mind: victory.
Meanwhile, the Arab world only speaks in strength. While Blinken is talking about Israel’s waning credit with the White House, the best way Israel can build it with the Saudis and other possible allies in the region is to stay the current course. A decisive defeat of Hamas would prove to the Arab world that they are a partner worthy of a controversial alliance, and Israel needs that far more now than it needs temporary approval from the U.S.
The Israelis’ position is an unenviable one. They are balancing the relationship with their historical failsafe of American military prowess while pursuing historical accords to prevent a nuclear Iran. But the U.S. is resting on its laurels to influence the international stage from which it has proven itself absent. We are in a new era, and Israeli decision-making must reflect that.
The United States has been a shaky friend to Israel since Obama’s tenure when his first act as president was to go on an apology tour and skip Israel while he was in the neighborhood. The policy of “reckoning with history,” as continued under Biden, has merely made our country one that can absolutely be reckoned with — cue Russia in Ukraine, illegal immigrants pouring across the border, and Iran’s proxy war in Gaza.
Biden’s latest sophistry on social media platform X — that Hamas carried out the attack “because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace” — should erase any doubt that Biden is preparing to turn his back on Israel. It is completely unconvincing that Biden would actually believe this. Hamas is not shy about its goals: the full eradication of Jews, from the river to the sea. President Biden surely knows this. The attempt to erase this fact is both a disgrace to the victims of the attacks and also a cheap, ugly tactic to turn the narrative against Israel.
The public threat doesn’t end there. In this same post on X, Biden also folded Israel’s defensive efforts into Hamas’ terror, referring to a general “path of terror, violence, killing” as if both sides contribute equally. He also demanded that Israel not give Hamas “what they seek” by continuing the war. In other words, letting killers and rapists run free is Biden’s path to peace.
He offers no solution for Israeli security, but he implies that continuing the current course would make Israel the obstacle to peace. Of course, this is aligned with the rest of the Biden admin’s policies: Release the criminals back onto the streets while jailing the civilians who step in to stop them.
This administration is also playing favorites; recent statements have whitewashed the Palestinians’ international crimes and focused the microscope entirely on Israel. Blinken, on behalf of Biden, constantly emphasizes Israel’s need to “protect [Palestinian] civilians,” with no recognition that it is Israel that goes to greater lengths to protect Palestinian people than Palestine’s own ruling governments. Blinken highlights “extremist [Israeli] settler violence” on numerous occasions and calls for “holding perpetrators accountable” even though these incidents are one-off, rare, and condemned by most Israelis. Of course, he fails to call for the same from the Palestinians.
He fails to call for anything from the Palestinians.
There is no mention of holding Hamas accountable, only of calls for Israel to back down. In Blinken’s statements with Palestinian leaders, he refers to “improv[ing] security and safety” and “advancing the establishment of a Palestinian state.” Meanwhile, in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — aside from his focus on aid to Palestinians — Blinken refers to securing the release of the hostages as if they have been kidnapped in a vacuum, with no perpetrator to point to. Blinken constantly publicly warns Israel to be “in compliance with international humanitarian law” — forget that Hamas is still firing rockets into civilian areas in Israel and has been prior to Oct. 7. That is only one crime on a long list, but luckily for the Hamas aggressors, Blinken’s progressive stomach forces him to avoid any confrontation.
It does not matter if Biden has previously acknowledged the attacks as terrorism — he does not believe Israel has a right to defend itself.
After all, this is the same man who is attributed with eliciting the thunderous response from then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the U.S. Congress in 1982 during Israel’s First Lebanon War:
I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.
Vice President Harris’ demand that “The Palestinian Authority must be revitalized” is the most recent installment of the Biden admin’s unsubtle orchestration to back Israel into a corner. This should come as no surprise — one of the Biden-Harris campaign promises was to restore aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Blinken also makes sure to publicize his meetings with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, who hasn’t allowed for a democratic election in nearly two decades. President Trump cut aid because of the PA’s pay-for-slay policy, which provides stipends to the families of terrorists. It’s trading one devil for another. Leaving Israel in the same vulnerable position it was in on the morning of Oct. 7, only under a different name, is the strategy of an administration committed to optics over outcome.
There has never been peace without a victory, and there has never been a victory without war. Remembering the words of another Israeli wartime prime minister: “It is better to be alive with a bad image than to be pitied and dead.”
Arynne Wexler is a blue state refugee enjoying her freedom in South Florida. Her commentary can be found across social media platforms @NonLibTake.
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