Gaza, October 2023. What did you think “Never Again” meant?
Thank you, Mr. President.
No US president is “pro-Israel” in the sense that they place the interests of Israel above the perceived interests of the US. And the interests of the two countries do not always coincide.
In that context, I consider Joe Biden's Shiva visit yesterday to a traumatized Israel with gratefulness.
As protected as he is, coming here entailed putting his life on the line. He is 80 years old. His steps are halting. His is the raspy voice of an elderly man. He has to squint to read the teleprompter and knows he sometimes repeats himself.
But as things stand on October 19, 2023, Joe Biden is, in my book, the most pro-Israel president in the 70-plus bumpy years of US-Israel relations.
I expect he will be the last pro-Israel Democratic president. Of the next one, it will be said, Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. (EXODUS 1:8).
In advance of his arrival, he sent a battle group led by the USS Gerald R. Ford. Some of you will appreciate the irony because Ford was one of the most anti-Israel presidents in the relationship.
And behind it will come (another irony) a battle group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Hamevin Yavin.
In two brief statements and in meetings with family members of Israelis taken captive by the monsters of Gaza, he gave comfort and encouragement.
Unprecedentedly, he participated in Israel's war cabinet (as had his Secretary of State Tony Blinkin earlier).
In doing all this, the Biden administration is signaling Iran and Hezbollah not to launch a preemptive all-out war on Israel. Iran is a nuclear power in all but name. It is controlled by believers in an apocalyptic form of Shi'ism. Hezbollah is exponentially more lethal than Hamas. Biden says that if they attack, the US will intervene on Israel's side. A war with Iran is the last thing ordinary Americans want, so don't tell me Biden is doing this for domestic political popularity.
He mobilized a rearmament airlift to Israel from day one of the war. US intelligence is helping us watch Iran and Syria. He is arranging with Congress to provide us with another $10 billion, mainly in military assistance.
America's unstinting wartime support for Israel is riling the Arab street so much so that Abdullah II of Jordan, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt, and the PLO's Mahmoud Abbas (despite being US clients) were afraid they would be overthrown yesterday had they been seen meeting with him as scheduled in Amman.
Al Jazeera and pro-Islamist social media influencers have fueled a region-wide Arab, Persian, and Turkish frenzy against Israel.
Biden had to beg El-Sisi to allow 20 trucks of humanitarian aid for the Palestinians into Gaza against Hamas's wishes because it wants to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the hopes of staving off an IDF invasion.
Egypt would like you to forget it has placed its own lock hold on Gaza, even as it has been looking the other way as Hamas imports weapons and contraband through tunnels connecting Sinai to Gaza.
The explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City - set off by an errant rocket fired by Islamic Jihad - was a Godsend to El-Sisi, whose restive population can now have their anger turned against the Jews, not his regime. He has given the tightly controlled media the green light to blame the Jews, just like in the old days.
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Some of Biden's decisions are mistaken but excusable. He seems to think that the Palestinians "are not Hamas." Yeah, they are.
On the West Bank and in Gaza, they went for Hamas the last time the population had a chance to vote. Polls taken before 10/7 showed Hamas would again be victorious in free Palestinian elections.
He also is pouring more aid money down the Palestinian drain—another $100 million in emergency assistance to help civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. The Americans and Europeans have emptied so much money into perennially corrupt Palestinian Authority coffers since 1993 with so little to show for it – in terms of institution building and a willingness among Palestinian elites to inculcate democratic values and coexistence – that it is achingly painful to behold.
And this doesn't even speak to financing UNWRA, whose perverse raison d'etre is to maintain the Palestinians as refugees in perpetuity.
But good-hearted Westerners need the illusion of momentum. They need to believe that the Palestinians want to help themselves more than they want to destroy Israel. It is an unshakeable delusional disorder. Any criticism on our part will further stress them and may worsen their symptoms. While not encouraging them, an understanding approach is indicated.
Biden's subtle nudging that we do not get carried away by rage frustrates some Israelis. But he's right. Our mission is to defang the Islamist monster's military capacity. To kill its military, political, and Sharia council members. We cannot obliterate the genocidal idea behind Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees, or the PLO. Given these circumstances, we have to be disciplined not to take out our wrath against the civilian population; and not to behave in a frenetic way; we are not murderers, despite what the Palestinians and their fellow travelers say.
And Biden is right, too, that we need an exit strategy before the IDF launches its anticipated land offensive.
