Washington Post blames Trump for Hamas attack on Israel

In 1984, at the Republican National Convention, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, still a Democrat, ripped her party for always “blaming America first.” Here, via Jay Nordlinger, is a sampling from her speech:

They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do. They didn’t blame Cuba or the Communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians. They blamed the United States instead.

But then, somehow, they always blame America first.

When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the blame-America-first crowd didn’t blame the terrorists who had murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.

But then, they always blame America first.

Nowadays, MAGA Republicans are blaming America first. Tucker Carlson is perhaps the worst offender, but Donald Trump isn’t far behind. For example, as Nordlinger points out, both blame America for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps MAGA should rename itself BAFA — Blame America First Again.

However, I don’t mean to suggest that Democrats have stopped blaming America first. They haven’t. In fact, with so many new vistas of leftism, left-liberals have found increasingly creative ways to blame America. Couple that with their hatred of Trump, and the sky’s the limit.

Which brings me to a recent Washington Post article that blames Trump and the Abraham Accords for Hamas’ invasion of Israel and the resulting slaughter of more than 1,000 civilians. The Post’s thesis is that the Accords signaled to Palestinians that Arab states and the U.S. had abandoned them and their quest for a state. The resulting “alienation” supposedly “hastened the attack by Hamas.”

The Post claims that its thesis is supported by “current and former American, Israeli and Arab officials.” But the only person it quotes in support of it is Abbas Zaki, a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, the political faction that controls the Palestinian Authority.

It’s not surprising that the PA wants to deflect blame for the massacre away from Palestinians and onto America. And, unfortunately, it’s not surprising that the Post does, too.

The Post also quotes Chris Murphy, who is neither a current nor a former official, but rather a partisan Democratic Senator. But Murphy doesn’t back up the Post’s claim. He says:

I think the Abraham Accords were incredibly important, but this disaster that we’re living through is a reminder that you cannot secure Israel simply through diplomatic work with Sunni nation-states.

No, you can’t. Israel secures itself through vigilance, tight control of its borders, and overwhelming military superiority. But the fact that the Accords aren’t sufficient to secure the Jewish State doesn’t mean they caused the October 7 attack.

To advance such an argument, one would have to view Hamas as an organization that wants nothing more than a state for Palestinians and that resorted to mass murder only because the Abraham Accords caused it to lose hope that such a state will emerge. But Hamas has never wanted a separate Palestinian state. It has always wanted the destruction of Israel.

Moreover, even viewing Hamas as wanting a Palestinian state, rather than the destruction of the Jewish State, would not be enough to support the Post’s attempt to blame the Abraham Accords for the October 7 attack. That’s because the Accords weren’t the cause of Arab state apathy towards Palestinians. Rather, they were a symptom of it.

The Accords reflect certain realizations by the Arab states that agreed to them. One was the Iranian threat to these states, which caused them to view Israel as a security partner. Another was the economic advantages of aligning more closely with the Israelis. The Post’s article mentions both.

Any serious interest the Arab states once may have had in helping Palestinians began evaporating years ago. To the extent some lingered into the Trump years, it was clearly outweighed by the considerations I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

In short, Palestinian irrelevance predated the Abraham Accords. Thus, even in the unlikely event that Hamas attacked Israel to make Palestinians relevant again, the Abraham Accords would not be a cause of the attack.

I should also note that early on, the Biden administration needlessly alienated Saudi Arabia. Naturally, this produced Saudi truculence. Perhaps as a result, Saudi Arabia was on record well before October 7 as citing progress toward a Palestinian state as a condition for peace with Israel.

The Post’s blame-America-first article admits this. Apparently the author doesn’t understand that it undermines the thesis of his piece, the predicate of which is that Hamas attacked Israel due to “alienation” over the way the Abraham Accords halted Arab focus on creating a Palestinian state.

But here’s what really strikes me about the Post’s article. If I wanted to blame the Abraham Accords for the Oct. 7 attack, I would argue that Iran, Hamas’ funder, pushed its client to attack in order to prevent Saudi Arabia from joining the other Gulf states that had reached a peace accord with Israel.

But the Post doesn’t go there. It’s okay to blame America first, but blaming Iran goes too far.

It’s obvious who is to blame for October 7. Nearly all of the blame goes to Hamas. The rest goes to the Israeli government — its Prime Minister and its security agencies — for letting the nation’s guard down. With more vigilance, Hamas wouldn’t have been able to pull off its butchery.

In my view, that’s all there is to it. The Posts fails to show otherwise.