America's Absurd Betrayal of Israel and the Jews

It's time to recall the words that Israel's prime minister told the Americans in 1982: "We will stand by our principles. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid."

Courtesy: The White House

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When U.S. President Joe Biden flew to Israel for a “solidarity visit” on October 18th, he said all the right things.

Like: “Hamas committed atrocities that recall the worst ravages of ISIS, unleashing pure unadulterated evil upon the world.”

And: “We will not stand by and do nothing again,” a reference to the United States’ lackluster response during much of the Holocaust.

Even as Biden was firing on all Israeli and Jewish cylinders, I knew deep down that he would not be the same man of conviction just a few weeks later. Unfortunately, I was right.

During the last two weeks or so, the United States has started shifting its public messaging to reveal more private pressure and disagreements in their discussions with Israeli officials, against the backdrop of growing international and domestic outcry about Palestinian casualties.

In an Israeli war cabinet meeting on November 4th, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli leaders they must do more to ensure noncombatants in Gaza are not harmed by the fighting between Israel and Palestinian terrorists.

According to a report, Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi countered by telling Blinken there would be even more casualties if the military took the advice of U.S. generals sent to advise Israel on the operation in Gaza. After Iraq and Afghanistan, I’m not sure U.S. generals should be talking about anything in a 10,000-kilometer radius of the Middle East.

The report also said that in meetings with Israeli leaders, Blinken stressed American backing for Israel is “wall-to-wall” — but “public opinion” is making it more difficult for the administration to extend such support.

If American “public opinion” doesn’t understand that Hamas is an openly genocidal terrorist group which cowardly places its operatives and infrastructure within schools and hospitals, and which uses children and women as human shields, as it tries to indiscriminately attack Israel, then Israel isn’t the problem. Those among the American public who ignore or overlook these indisputable facts are the problem.

You know who else is the problem? Those among the American public and elsewhere across the West who don’t realize that, if we don’t vehemently destroy Islamic Jihad wherever it threatens the West, the very nature of “public opinion” — and with it, liberties like free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to peaceful protest — will be in real danger of oblivion.

So if you, Mr. Biden, aren’t able to convey these clear distinctions and obvious truths to the American public, time and time again until they finally understand what’s really at stake here, by simply repeating something like, “The fighting will stop when Hamas surrenders and releases all 240 abductees.” — then you, Mr. Biden, are unfit to be “the leader of the free world.”

Heck, you sure as hell aren’t worthy of reelection in 2024. And America is not anything close to being Israel’s best friend, so stop posing like it is.

If, in reality, America was Israel’s best friend, we wouldn’t be witnessing America’s waning support for Israel’s existential campaign, just weeks after the Biden administration unconditionally vied for it.

We wouldn’t see the Americans increasingly question Israel at every commotion of more Palestinians casualties — the source of which is a Palestinian terrorist organization that factors dead Palestinian terrorists, and Palestinians whom these terrorists kill, into the total number of Palestinian casualties.

We wouldn’t see U.S. generals make purely idiotic comments like, “The faster you can get to a point where you stop the hostilities, you have less strife for the civilian population that turns into someone who now wants to be the next member of Hamas.” After all, these “hostilities” are the very ones the U.S. government wholeheartedly endorsed just a few weeks ago.

And the entire purpose of these “hostilities” is to (1) eradicate Hamas, a Jihadist terrorist group hellbent on destroying Israel and the West in the Middle East, and (2) ensure that anyone who wants to subscribe to Hamas now or in the future will be writing themselves a bonafide death sentence.

U.S. President Jimmy Carter With Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978

If I’m following the Americans’ logic right now, it seems they agreed with Israel to start a military campaign. And now, just a few weeks later, the Americans are haphazardly thinking about diminishing their support for this campaign, because they weren’t smart enough to realize that everything happening now was so obviously bound to happen, such as Hamas’ reporting of Palestinian casualties and the “war of information” (and by “information” I mean Palestinian and anti-Jewish propaganda).

This feeble line of thinking is potentially fatal for the West, not just for Israel, yet I (a dual American-Israeli citizen) fully expected Americans to be easily swayed by Palestinian propaganda, because so many of them are illiterate in differentiating between facts and said propaganda, intellectually lazy about doing and contemplating extensive research, or simply antisemitic (disguised as anti-Israel).

There is also the overly liberal (“progressive”) group which is so psychologically soft and has no understanding of how the world has worked for thousands of years. For example, that ideological wars frequently happen and result in unfortunate consequences, no less a war against vicious groups of terrorists who don’t play by any realm of reasonable or respectable “rules.” In other words, nothing is off limits to these savages, and they are only emboldened by the “anti-war at all costs” posturing that this overly liberal group parades.

All these people — from the illiterate to the overly liberal “progressives” — are unduly putting “public pressure” on America to, for example, give a timeline to Israel about how much longer it can continue proceeding with incredibly effective aerial assaults. And to aggressively persuade Israel to accept “humanitarian pauses” — a term that seems to have been invented specifically for and only applied against Israel.

Mr. Biden, which part of “humanitarian pauses” serves your stated goal of eliminating Hamas? And Mr. Biden, were there “humanitarian pauses” against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ISIS? More importantly, should there have been? You and I both know the answer to these questions is an emphatic “no,” so why are you asking us to do something that America would and probably will never do, regardless of any circumstances?

There’s a term for this: it’s called “double standards” — and true allies don’t treat each other this way.

At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, Israel has to decide which is more essential: To look good in the eyes of the West, or to terrify those in the Middle East. To this end, former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir aptly said, “If we have to choose between being dead and pitied, and being alive with a bad image, we’d rather be alive and have the bad image.”

Golda Meir With U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1962

While it’s true that Israel has a responsibility to be committed and collaborative with its partners, like the United States and other countries which have supported the Jewish state financially, militarily, and otherwise over the decades, it’s also true that Israel also has the utmost responsibility to the Israeli people, the kidnapped and their families, our military, the parents and grandparents of soldiers on the front lines, and of those who have already fallen for our country.

So, Mr. Biden, if you’re effectively asking Israel to be more committed to American “public opinion” than you are to the Israeli people, your leadership compass is horribly broken — and you’re a hypocrite, because you would never even think about doing anything slightly similar if the tables were turned.

What’s more, Mr. Biden, you’re a fraudulent populist who cares more about “public opinion” than about the so-called American virtues of life, liberty, and justice — virtues that your country and others have dramatically failed to instill in the Middle East, while Israel just celebrated its 75th anniversary as the only remotely Western country in this dangerous and volatile region.

Even if Israel tried to look good in the eyes of the West by, for example, agreeing to “humanitarian pauses” or minimizing aerial assaults, the West wouldn’t, after decades of being anti-Israel — the only country in the world that has “anti” before its name — suddenly accept Israel for what it is: a remarkably special, but also quite ordinary, country.

Many of us Jews see right through “anti-Israel” even in times of peace. We know it’s actually a dressed-up version of antisemitism, and there is literally nothing Israel can do to stop the world for blaming its problems on the Jews, or for holding the Jews to standards no one else is expected to meet.

Quite the opposite. Much of the world will continue to look in every Israeli nook and cranny for crumbs that somehow justify the ridiculous desire to keep beating the anti-Israel (and by extension, antisemitic) drum.

That’s why, when push comes to shove, Israel must see America for what it is: not a best friend, but a convenient one. An ally that shows up when it’s beneficial for them to do so, and a country that distances itself when Israel doesn’t overwhelmingly fit into the narrow quarters of near-perfection.

Mr. Biden, is this how you’re planning to create allies that will, sooner or later, need to stand (very) strong and unshakably united against this generation’s axis of evils, like Iran and Russia?

For now, Israel must treat America as the convenient friend it really is. If and when this happens, what you’d find is that the Americans would still support Israel, just not as publicly, because the U.S. needs Israel for its “strategic interests” just as much as Israel benefits from U.S. financial and military support.

In other words, Israel would still receive the same amount of money and military assets from the Americans, just through different means, and with little-to-no publicity surrounding it.

As far as we in Israel are concerned, the vehicles from which we receive American aid and the amount of public attention attributed to it make no difference to us.

Of course, there’s a chance that the U.S. could try to threaten Israel with walking back its aid if the Israelis don’t answer every American beck and call. This wouldn’t be the first time that the Americans make such an empty ultimatum, if indeed they’ll do so again.

In 1982, a young senator named Joe Biden — that’s right, the same Joe Biden whose America’s current president — levied this very threat at Menachem Begin, Israel’s then-prime minister, who replied:

“Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country.”

“We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”

The time has come for Israeli leadership to resoundingly and precisely repeat these words to the Americans, loud and clear.

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