Joe Biden, protector of Hamas
I assume that, by now, most of you have read more than one column blasting Joe Biden for suspending the shipment of munitions to Israel. Therefore, I should probably write about something else tonight.
However, I haven’t been able to think about any other news today. So, with your indulgence, here goes:
The Biden administration’s position is that Israel must not attempt to take out the Hamas brigades holed up in Rafah without a “credible plan” to protect civilians. Unfortunately, there is no credible plan for taking out the Hamas brigades while protecting civilians. Hamas uses civilians to protect its terrorists precisely for the purpose of making this dual task — killing them while protecting civilians — impossible.
The best Israel can do is to warn civilians of impending attacks, enabling them to escape to other parts of Gaza or at least to evacuate soon-to-be-hit targets. Israel does this and, in so doing, eliminates to some degree the element of surprise.
This works to Hamas’ advantage. More than that Israel cannot do if it wishes to defeat Hamas and end the war.
Team Biden understands all of this. Therefore, its insistence on a credible plan to protect civilians as a precondition of an assault on Hamas in Rafah is simply an insistence that Israel not carry out that assault.
In other words, Biden is insisting that Israel end its war without having defeating Hamas. If Israel accedes, Biden will have protected Hamas from its destruction.
At the same time, Biden declares his support for Israel. “My commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad,” he claimed.
The very next day Biden announced he would not deliver weapons such as bombs and artillery shells that could be used against Hamas. If Biden won’t deliver weapons for use in taking out Hamas — the primary threat, along with Iran (its sponsor) to Israel — then his commitment to the security of Israel is far from “ironclad.” In fact, it’s bogus.
House Speaker Johnson can therefore be excused for believing that Biden, in making these two inconsistent claims, was having a senior moment. Biden wasn’t, though. Instead, he was doing what he’s done throughout his career — trying to have it both ways, one way to satisfy Muslim-Americans and leftists and the other way to satisfy Jews and liberals who support Israel.
Stated more plainly, Biden was lying when he said his support for Israel’s security is “ironclad.”
If Biden were serious about supporting Israel, he would have provided a “credible plan” for taking out the Hamas brigades in Rafah without launching a major attack there. But Biden can’t provide one for the same reason Israel can’t provide a credible plan for protecting civilians. Both missions are impossible.
Thus, like most choices in warfare, the alternatives are stark. Either allow Hamas to survive as a military force or inflict damage on civilians.
Biden has opted for protecting Hamas. He is that terrorist groups last and only hope for survival as a threat to Israel.
What should Israel do? It should attack Hamas in Rafah, of course. This is a war Israel must win.
Israel should also stop consulting with the Biden administration about its military plans. Team Biden is no longer an ally in the fight against Hamas. There is, now, a stark divergence in interest between Israel and Team Biden. Stated better, a pre-existing divergence in interests has now come starkly to the fore.
It seems clear that Israel doesn’t need any more U.S. armaments to finish this war. The Biden administration probably understands this and probably expects Israel to go ahead. If it does, he can claim he did what he could to stop it. If Israel doesn’t launch a major attack — Biden’s preferred outcome — he can take credit for stopping it.
It’s up to Israel to make sure Biden doesn’t get his preferred outcome — the survival of Hamas.
What about the consequences for future Israeli relations with America? With luck, Biden will be gone by late January of next year. Israeli relations with Donald Trump were fine during his term as president. They should be fine in a second term.
Even if Biden is still in office next year, Netanyahu probably won’t be. He likely will get the boot — deservedly so, not because of his conduct of the war, but because of his disregard of Hamas’ threat, pre-war.
With a new prime minister in place, Israel can blame the breakdown in relations with Biden on Netanyahu. Relations can be patched up on that basis.
However, as I’ve said since the war started, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Democratic support for Israel. Before long, Israel will not be able to count on the backing of Democrats no matter who is its prime minister.
Unfortunately, though, this will be the case whether or not Israel attacks Rafah hard. So Israel should get on with it.
This reduces my ambivalence about voting for Trump. What else could it do?
This may be a blessing in disguise. The decades long Israeli strategy of relying on the United States has clearly come to an end at an almost unimaginable point not because Americans have turned against Israel but because Democrats have. Whatever happens in November at some point Democrats will again control the government and relations will likely be even worse as the Democrats by and large see Israel as a moral stain and support the murder cult that is the Palestinian National Movement. The American people will stand with the free nation of Israel but they will not vote based on this.
Israel must be prepared to not only defend against the murderous death cult on its border but also against Iran and it's other proxies without American aid or support. This means enlarging it's own weapons industries. It means building transactional relationships with other powers even those that might be at odds with the US. Netanyahu placed a bad bet back in 09. He believed Obama was all bluster and he could out talk him or out last him. Obama wasn't all bluster. He has transformed the Democratic party and remade it in his own Islamist favoring/Israel loathing image. And that is the reality of it. As for now yes you are right. This is the opportunity to tell Biden and his fools to stuff it. No more meetings. No more phone calls. No more scoldings. And NO MORE DELAYS. It pains me that it's come to this. But I take solace that the American people stand with Israel not Biden and Hamas and Iran.