Israeli Blood on Biden's Hands (Updated)
President Harry Truman was the first world leader to formally recognize Israel as a legitimate Jewish nation on May 14, 1948, only eleven minutes after her creation.
Now, Israel is fighting for her life against a coalition of Hamas terrorists in Gaza and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, all of it sanctioned by Iran and abetted by left-wing western leaders. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Al Khamenei recently said, “God willing, the cancer of the usurper Zionist regime will be eradicated at the hands of the Palestinian people and the Resistance forces through the region.” The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran planned and coordinated the air, sea and land attacks on the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which marks the completion of the reading of the Torah. It came almost 50 years to the date after Arabs launched the Yom Kippur War.
It is outrageous that 75 years after its founding, Israel is forced to defend her very existence against enemies clinging to the mad belief that they can push her, a sovereign nation, into the sea. Make no mistake, Israel is under siege. Hundreds of innocent civilians have been murdered, thousands wounded, families kidnapped, women raped, Israelis mowed down in massacre. The terrorists have paraded bodies through the streets to be spat at. And the greatest drivers of this horrific attack against Jews — some say it is the worst targeted killing of Jews since the Holocaust — are the Democrat presidents of modern creation and the constituencies they created. Neither Bill Clinton nor Barack Obama has said a word about this vicious assault.
(Obama broke his silence Monday night, saying the US must “stand squarely alongside our ally, Israel, as it dismantles Hamas.” This is a major shift for Obama, and a sign of how much the Biden policy has backfired. Obama declined to visit Israel during his first term, and in his second failed to use a US veto to stop a UN Security Council resolution declaring illegal Israel’s presence in east Jerusalem.)
For his part, Biden has been complicit with Israel’s enemies, literally providing the fuel in their tanks. In his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan (troops first, desperate civilians hanging from airplane wings), he left behind $85 billion worth of high-end military equipment, some of which may have been used in the blood-filled killing fields of Israel. In September, he gave Iran $6 billion of cash, in exchange for five US prisoners. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called the attack “a grotesque act of war” and said it was “infuriating … that it was paid for by Joe Biden sending billions to Iran.”
When the furor over the Hamas atrocities grew, Biden withdrew his administration’s calls for a ceasefire, the usual go-to playbook. Then he clocked out of work at noon — as Israeli citizens captured by Hamas were being executed on television — though apparently he recovered enough to host a BBQ at the White House Monday night. I have written earlier of Biden as our “no empathy president,” but this was a new low.
For decades in America, Far Left Democrats have prompted Palestinians to think of themselves as the oppressed, and Israel as the oppressors. Sound familiar? This post-modernist glass was encouraged by everyone from the UN to the Arab nations, for their own strategic if cynical reasons. But the effect was to create a generation of young Americans who feel badly for the Palestinians, liken Israel to South Africa during apartheid and call for Israel’s destruction. At a rally in NY Times Square over the weekend, these apologists for terrorism shouted “New York City you will see, Palestine will be free,” “Zionism has got to go” and “Long live the intifada.” Signs told the rest:: “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” “Zionism is genocide,” “End all U.S. aid to apartheid Israel,” and “Glory to our martyrs.”
Let’s be clear. This is no liberation movement. Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge refers to the mosque in the center of the Old City of Jerusalem, considered to be the third holiest site for Muslims after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Hamas is not hoping to be liberated from Israel’s rule, but to annihilate it in the name of all Muslims. Like every other cause embraced by the Far Left, so-called progressives ignore history — in this case Israel’s record as a beacon of democracy in a neighborhood of tyrants. It is just one of those social constructs — like gender or science or racial progress — they feel free to reinvent. In his new book, America’s Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything, Christopher Rufo argues they are no longer liberals, but nihilists.
There is much speculation that the timing for this assault was prompted by Saudi Arabia’s talks with Israel on a peace deal. Saudi, the most populous Arab country, has long given lip service to the Palestinian cause, scuttling peace deals in their name. But now the Saudis have bigger problems — namely Iran, newly empowered by the anti-Israel Biden administration, on the verge of becoming a nuclear power, a concern they share with Israel. So the enemy of my enemy is to become, if not a friend, now an ally.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared his country at war. Israel has put Gaza under a “complete siege,” cutting off water, food and electricity, vowing to destroy Hamas’ military capability. “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. And former President Donald J. Trump, saying Biden has “betrayed our country,” said Israel has every right to defend herself, and “with overwhelming force.”
Presidents of both parties — looking at you George W. Bush — always talked a good game of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump was the only one who did it. And he is the only one who negotiated the Abraham Accords, which saw one Arab nation after another — the UAE, Bahrain — shake hands with Israel. Hamas, said the Sunday Guardian, wants to scuttle the Abraham Accords and Saudi-Israeli cooperation. Sadly, Trump added, American taxpayers funded the attack. “We brought so much peace to the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, only to see Biden whittle it away at a far more rapid pace than anyone thought possible.”
In the early 1990s, When James A. Baker III was secretary of State, he did a lot of Mideast shuttling. As the State Department reporter for USA Today, I traveled with him. Our trips usually involved a long stop in Damascus (Saddam Hussein liked to detain Baker for nine hour meetings in which he would lecture the American diplomat on the history of Mesopotamia) and shorter ones in Israel, Jordan, Egypt and sometimes Saudi Arabia. I learned a lot about diplomacy from watching Baker, who seemed to understand that world diplomacy was a lot like local politics — you had to know how hard to push the combatants to change before they risked political fallout.
Once Baker sent his deputy, Lawrence Eagleburger, who had no experience in the region. As we were leaving for home, a reporter asked Eagleburger if he thought he understood Middle East politics now. Taking the cigar out of his mouth, Eagleburger parroted the administration line, saying, off the record, “Yeah, no matter what happens, the Palestinians get screwed.” Translation: when it suits policy whim, US diplomats talked a good game about empowering Palestinians, requiring Israel to cede territory, forcing both to salute a two state solution. But in the end, if a peace treaty hung in the balance, they would sacrifice the Palestinians, calling them victims.
No More. Palestinians have redefined themselves as more aligned with Tehran than Riyadh. They have descended into medieval barbarism — kidnapping children and torturing their parents. An ambush on a music festival in the Negev desert left hundreds dead. Survivors called it a massacre. Hundreds of women were raped. And with a cheering section of far left Israel’s bashers — anti-Semitism is the Squad’s animating sentiment, the only prejudice sanctioned by the Left — the Palestinians finally emerge as who they always were — not as oppressed but as terrorists.
No question the Hamas attack on Israel was also a massive Israeli intelligence failure. Calling the attack “Israel’s 9/11,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned the US must secure its southern border or face “significant risk” of terror attacks here.
“We have had more than 7 million people come in illegally under Biden, we don’t know who these people are,” DeSantis said. “They’re coming, people have come from Russia, China, Iran, other places in the Middle East.”
“And so the question is, are you trying to tell me that people that want to do us harm — whether nation states or terrorist groups — are not going to take advantage of that and try to exploit it?” he said. “And I’ve said publicly before this thing had even happened with the tragedy in Israel, there will be unfortunately, if I had to bet, there’d be a terrorist attack that occurs in the United States at some point in the future that we’ll be able to tie back to the open southern border.”
If so, that one will be on you too, Joe Biden.