For someone who has declared himself to be a Zionist, US President Joe Biden sure has a funny way of showing it.
On April 4, in a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden reportedly harangued Israel, all but threatening to cut off military aid to the Jewish state unless it capitulated to his demands.
As Reuters succinctly noted, “US President Joe Biden effectively gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an ultimatum on Thursday: Protect Palestinian civilians and foreign aid workers in Gaza or Washington could rein in support for Israel in its war against Hamas militants.”
The Biden administration’s statements on Israel-Hamas war
Not content with berating Israel in private, the administration quickly trotted out Secretary of State Antony Blinken to give Jerusalem a tongue-lashing in public.
Speaking at a press conference in Brussels, Blinken wasted little time before revealing the contents of the Biden-Netanyahu call, putting Israel on notice that it had to act.
Incredibly, he went so far as to suggest that Israel was running the risk of becoming “indistinguishable” from Hamas if it did not do more to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
This morally obscene comment was enough to raise eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic, coming as it did just six months after Hamas carried out the largest mass murder of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.
For an ally to insinuate that Israel could possibly be equated with a terrorist organization bent on its destruction is disturbing in the extreme.
But Blinken didn’t stop there.
He proceeded to insist that “Right now, there is no higher priority in Gaza” than protecting Palestinian civilians. This statement is curious, to say the least, particularly since there are at least five American citizens still being held hostage by Hamas. One would assume that a US secretary of state would consider the safety and well-being of American captives to be the highest priority.
Moreover, by parroting the talking points of Israel’s foes and making it sound like the Jewish state is callously disregarding human life, both Biden and Blinken are deliberately undermining the war effort in Gaza at precisely the worst possible moment.
With at least four battalions of Hamas terrorists still holed up in Rafah, the goal of eliminating the terrorist organization remains incomplete. Yet America has been pressuring Israel to refrain from going in and finishing the job, thus far delaying the operation for weeks.
Needless to say, this has given Hamas time to plan, prepare, and fortify its defenses, which will only make it even more difficult for the IDF when it does eventually take Rafah.
Simply put, this is a breathtaking betrayal of Israel by Biden, who clearly cares more about his poll numbers in Michigan and Minnesota than the fate of the Jewish state.
Washington’s latest series of salvos marks the climax of weeks of growing antipathy toward Israel.
On March 25, the US refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate Gaza ceasefire, without conditioning it on releasing the hostages. The text did not even condemn Hamas, but that didn’t prevent the Biden administration from allowing it to pass.
Prior to that, after Sen. Chuck Schumer stuck his nose into Israel’s internal affairs and called for elections to unseat Netanyahu, Biden praised his remarks as a “good speech.”
As former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman put it in an epic post on X on April 5, “In the past month, the Biden administration and Democratic leaders in Congress have leveled more criticism against the democratically elected government of Israel than against the ruthless dictators of Russia (Putin), North Korea (Kim),Turkey (Erdogan), Venezuela (Maduro), Iran (Khamenei), Syria (Assad), and Hamas (Sinwar) COMBINED. Let that sink in.”
Sure, both Biden and Blinken continue to say that Israel has the right to defend itself and that they remain committed to its security. But they would do well to recall the observation made by another Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, who said in a June 1963 speech in Frankfurt that “Lofty words cannot construct an alliance or maintain it. Only concrete deeds can do that.”
Sadly, rather than acting to strengthen the US-Israel alliance, they seem hell-bent on undermining it. This is weakness at its worst, and recklessness at its most ruinous.
The writer served as deputy director of communications under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term of office.
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