In the aftermath of the attacks on October 7, President Joe Biden gave some statements that were in strong support of Israel. For a moment, those who criticized the President’s leadership on the world stage were pleasantly surprised and somewhat dumbfounded by his ability to call out evil and stand firm with the greatest ally the United State has. Biden didn’t surprise his critics for long, though, as a mere few weeks later he has begun to waver in his support and is showing considerable weakness to America’s enemies.
Here’s the good news: The American people and the political class stand behind Israel – for now. A YouGov poll shows that the support for Israel has risen among Americans since the start of the war. Currently, ten US Senators are in Israel showing support, and the vast majority of Congress is behind Israel, as well. The loud voices of the Hamas Caucus are a very vocal minority, and Democrats need to make it clear to their caucus that support for terrorist organizations is unacceptable.
Joe Biden has always been a political weathervane. His long career is filled with examples of flip-flopping on issues based on what is politically convenient. Any hard stance he has taken, be it on crime, marriage, abortion, or any other politically charged issue, he has taken the opposite stance as the Democratic Party radicalized. He cannot be trusted to be a principled voice, since he has no principles. If the Hamas Caucus brings more and more Democrats to their cause in calling for a ceasefire to allow time for Hamas to rearm themselves, Biden could easily shift. That’s why his language this past week has been so disconcerting.
Biden was cornered on Air Force One by reporters as he was leaving Israel last week. Biden’s age has been a problem, but now it’s a catastrophe. He simply looks like a frail old man, there’s no going around it. John Kirby, Karinne Jean Pierre, and Antony Blinken could all be seen muttering amongst themselves that they need to stop him from talking. Biden made a flippant remark about the Palestinian Islamic Jihad hitting a hospital parking lot in Gaza, saying they “gotta learn to shoot straight,” and saying that Israel needs to be “accountable” for the civilians in Gaza who are trapped there by Hamas.
What messaging is Biden giving to the world when he is lecturing Israel after they were attacked? Biden is tweeting out that “Israel has the right to defend itself… At the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu and I have discussed how Israel must operate by the laws of war.” He also mentioned this in his Oval Office address. This is like if FDR said after the Nazi blitzkrieg of London that “Great Britain has a right to defend itself, but I told Churchill to worry about those German citizens when going after the Nazis.” That’s ludicrous. Did Biden say that to Zelenskyy during a Ukrainian counteroffensive? Israel is, once again, held to a different standard.
Biden’s Oval Office address should give every supporter of Israel pause in wondering what the priorities are. It has been just over two weeks since Israel has begun its war to root out Hamas. Russia invaded Ukraine a year and a half ago. There has been no new military aid to Israel since the war began. Military aid to Ukraine is over $78 billion. Yet if you watched Biden’s speech, not knowing what was going on, you would think that Biden’s priority was Ukraine and Israel was an afterthought. Biden wants four times more taxpayer funds to go to Ukraine than to Israel.
This is a cynical political move. Biden knows that a large swath of Americans, primarily on the right side of the aisle, are sick of funding the Ukrainian war without knowing what the end goal is going to be. This same swath is very much in favor of supporting Israel right now, precisely because they know what Israel’s goals are and they know that Israel will not require endless funding. Biden is combining the two to either get his Ukraine funding passed or, if it fails, attack his political enemies. In short, he’s using Israel’s tragedy for his political gain ahead of an election year.
Biden also did the moral equivalency dance between the rise of anti-Semitism in the aftermath of the attacks and Islamophobia. A tragedy occurred in Chicago where a six-year-old Palestinian American boy was murdered. That action was universally condemned. There were no parades on the streets celebrating his murder, no marches on college campuses claiming that his murder was merely “resistance.” That would be despicable and abhorrent. Yet that is what the Jewish community is going through when hundreds of children are slaughtered by Hamas. So, when Biden says, “I know many of you in the Muslim American community…saying to yourselves, ‘Here we go again with Islamophobia and the distrust we saw after 9/11,’” that’s not empathy; that’s dismissive of what Jews are going through right now. Every day, Jews are subject to attacks, both verbal and physical. People are tearing down signs of the kidnapped children and women. Images of swastikas and graffitied curses are popping up everywhere. A Jewish woman in Michigan was stabbed to death outside her home. Jews are getting attacked on the streets. A sentence about anti-Semitism doesn’t cut it.
Biden then did what he always does when there is an emergency situation that requires leadership: He went to the beach! Biden took another vacation in Delaware, where he could be seen lounging once again while Americans are still held hostage in Gaza. No one expected this man, pushing 81, to be descending down from a helicopter on a rescue mission, but let’s not pretend that optics don’t mean anything. It makes America look like a joke, not taking the situation seriously, when Biden does this.
Then Biden put out the most ridiculous message about the plans going forward. “And we cannot give up on a two-state solution,” he wrote on Twitter. At this stage, that is completely insane. He is talking about concessions by Israel to their enemy while they are at war. That’s egregiously bad. Mahmoud Abbas paid families of terrorists who committed these acts over $3 million. Palestinians in Judea and Samaria cheered and celebrated when Hamas killed Israelis. Biden raising the “two-state solution” is so incredibly tone-deaf it borders on the inhumane.
American Jews and supporters of Israel need to be wary of Biden. He has a history of flipping his positions, and he’s already wavering in support of Israel in their time of need. He must be held accountable for this. There must be a counterbalance to pressure that he’s getting from the far-Left. That can only happen if his bad acts are called out every time.
By Moshe Hill
