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This past Saturday, U.S. President Joe Biden was recorded leaving a church in Delaware, where he was asked what his message is to the Iranian regime as it mulls a potential attack on Israel, in retaliation for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was visiting Iran a couple weeks ago.
Biden replied with one word: “Don’t.”
You may recall that it was this same single word which Biden used shortly after October 7th, at the time directed to the Lebanon-based Islamist terror group and Iran’s main proxy, Hezbollah. The U.S. also quickly relocated a battleship to the region as a display of American support with Israel.
This display was genuinely appreciated in Israel, but Biden’s “don’t” strategy has done absolutely nothing to stop Hezbollah from shelling Israel with rockets, missiles, and suicide drones on a near-daily basis since October 8th — leaving some 80,000 Israelis displaced from their homes in northern Israel, on the border with Lebanon.
And, just a few hours after Biden repeated his cute-yet-meaningless “don’t” tagline this past Saturday, a report broke that Iran is likely to carry out a retributive attack on Israel in the coming days.
These events underscore a far more concerning reality, one in which American deterrence has been tremendously downgraded under the two most recent Democrats in the White House: Biden and, before him, Barack Obama.
Hence why the battleship that Biden sent to the Mediterranean shortly after October 7th did nothing but wade water for a couple of months, before sailing off to somewhere else in January — while Hezbollah has exponentially increased their attacks on Israel, many of which deliberately target Israeli civilians.
The other main party in America, the Republicans, is partly to blame for this too; the two Middle East wars that the Republicans dragged the U.S. and other countries into in the 2000s made the Democrats’ platform anti-war at virtually all costs.
But right now, Biden has been in the White House for almost four years — and when you are in that seat for that long, the focus is rightly and only on you, not on your competitor in a future election three months down the line.
Thus, it is about time someone told President Biden and his Democrats what he loves to tell Israel’s self-professed, genocidal enemies: “Don’t.”
President Biden, don’t pursue diplomatic peace with Jihadist terrorists and their Jihadist state sponsors.
One of the most compelling aspects of the 6th-century BCE strategy of Sun Tzu, the famous Chinese general, is the idea of appearing weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak, aiming to subdue your enemy without engaging in direct conflict.
Unfortunately, the U.S. seems to have been broadcasting weakness for many years now. For example, Biden and his administration are quick to assure the world that the U.S. and Israel are not seeking war with Hezbollah and Iran (the chief sponsor of Hezbollah and Hamas), emphasizing a preference for diplomacy. This statement, however, is being misconstrued by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran as a sign of weakness rather than a strategic position aimed at avoiding escalation.
This U.S.-led strategy, which Israel is forced to follow, appears to be a matter of happenstance rather than deliberate design. The Biden administration, convinced that their posture of restraint will prevent full-scale war, are unintentionally encouraging further aggression.
The paradox becomes evident when we consider historical patterns: Efforts at diplomatic peace with the Palestinians and their “allies” (such as Iran and Hezbollah) during the last 30 years have led to more conflict and less peace.
Israel’s profound experience has shown that our — the Western world’s — enemies interpret these gestures as signs of weakness rather than steps toward genuine peace.
The consistent outcome has been increased aggression and a perception of Israel as vulnerable and unprepared for substantial conflict, backed by an American government that has been micro-managing the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war and effectively forcing the Israelis to fight with two hands behind their backs.
In other words, actions that have weakness written all over them.
President Biden, don’t give Islamists a platform.
In February, several senior Biden administration officials met with Osama Siblani, a Michigan-based publisher of the Arab American News who has praised Hamas and Hezbollah, and claimed the U.S. government was “bought” by the “Zionist lobby.”
The meeting came after thousands of Arabs and Muslims in Michigan, a consequential “swing state” in the upcoming presidential election, have been dubbing Biden “Genocide Joe” for his handling of the Israel-Hamas-Hezbollah war.
Of course, there is no genocide taking place in this war, and the only parties that have genocidal aims as a matter of policy and record are these Arab and Muslim Americans’ “brothers and sisters” who run Hamas and Hezbollah.
Anyone who understands politics knows that there are no free lunches. Whatever the Biden administration and his successor Kamala Harris have been promising these Arab and Muslim Americans behind close doors will surely hurt American Jewish communities, no less the U.S.-Israel relationship, in the coming years. More on the reasons why below.
Also this year, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan “randomly” promoted Maher Bitar to a new position on the U.S. National Security Council. Bitar is a former anti-Israeli activist of Palestinian descent who has hosted conferences praising Islamic terrorism (i.e. Jihad). And now this man is on the U.S. National Security Council. Yes, you read that correctly.
President Biden, don’t support the Palestinians.
It seems that the Americans preach all the time about the importance of democracy, human rights and liberties, and peace and prosperity for countries across the world. They incessantly talk about how we, the West, must oppose these tyrannical Russian, North Korean, and even Chinese regimes.
But when it comes to the Palestinians — which feature two of the planet’s most undemocratic, tyrannical regimes in Hamas and the Palestinian Authority — the Biden administration apparently has no problem with their forms of government and their societal norms, such as misogyny, intolerance for non-Muslims, celebration of Jihad (killing non-Muslims in the name of Islam), anti-LGBTQ, and almost no real rights for minorities of any kind.
Yet the Biden administration — including and perhaps most notably, Vice President Kamala Harris — has been selling out to Muslim and Arab American voters and donors, desperate for their support in the upcoming election.
Some make the argument that both the Democrats and Republicans have historically “sold out” to Jewish Americans. It is true that, with the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel, U.S. politicians of all types have courted Jewish American voters and donors as a matter of strategy.
But there are a few key differences between Jewish Americans and Muslim and Arab Americans, namely that Jewish Americans are predominantly tolerant of other groups, including but not limited to Muslims and Arabs, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. Hence why the majority of Jewish Americans are in favor of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for instance.
On the other hand, Muslim and Arab Americans are predominantly intolerant of other groups, especially Jewish Americans and, by extension, Israelis. Hence why, for example, many Muslim and Arab Americans do not support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead, they believe in — as we have been hearing for months on end now — “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” In other words, one Palestinian state and no Jewish state anywhere in the Middle East.
These are the people that the Biden administration and, by extension, the Democrats have been getting in bed with, as a matter of policy and strategy. May God bless all of us Jewish Americans.
President Biden, don’t leave American hostages stranded in Gaza.
At the beginning of August, the U.S. and Russia agreed to a hostage-for-prisoner swap that brought home a handful of Americans in Russian captivity in exchange for Russian prisoners held in the U.S.
Yet, somehow, the eight Americans who were kidnapped in Israel on October 7th by Palestinian terrorists are getting no real help from Biden’s administration. I am not talking about intention, but outcome.
If the U.S. can free American hostages in Russia while Biden’s administration has been fully supporting Ukraine in its two-and-a-half-year war against Russia, it boggles my mind that the U.S. cannot find a way to free the eight Americans kidnapped on October 7th.
President Biden, don’t hold Israel back from defeating Hamas.
Many people wonder why it is taking Israel “so long” to defeat Hamas, but those paying close attention know that one of the main reasons is how Biden’s administration has micro-managed Israel’s strategy, plans of action, and operations from the first days of this war — using plenty of leverage against the Jewish state so as not to agitate American “progressives,” Arabs, and Muslims (virtually the only groups in the U.S. that do not support Israel’s response to October 7th).
Never mind that no one in Biden’s administration can suggest a realistic, effective way to destroy Hamas with fewer casualties than Israel is doing — around a one-to-one ratio of civilian-to-combatant casualties, compared to the United Nations’ estimate of a nine-to-one international average.
Ultimately, this means that no one in Biden’s administration — or at least no one among the main decision-makers — truly agrees that Hamas must be destroyed, even though it continues to present a serious threat to one of America’s greatest allies so long as Hamas exists as a military and governing force in Gaza.
Those who want the Islamist, genocidal terrorist group Hamas to survive (if not in intention, then in outcome) are the ones who are immoral. Not Israel.
The Biden administration, including Vice President Kamala Harris this past weekend, keeps blabbing about “far too many” Palestinian civilians who have been killed since October 7th — as if there is a number that would be acceptable.
Unless you want to be a grade-A hypocrite, you cannot in one breath declare that Israel has a right to defend itself and in another breath imply that the only possible way for Israel to defend itself against human-shield-wielding terrorists is nowhere near good enough.
How Israel has reportedly achieved a beyond-impressive one-to-one ratio of civilian-to-combatant casualties, while regularly fighting in Gaza’s densely populated urban areas against Jihadists who habitually use human shields and hide behind civilian infrastructure, will be studied by militaries across the world (including the U.S. Army) for years to come.
Just don’t tell President Biden and his administration that.
Excellent article. You said it all. I am bewildered and disgusted how many of my fellow Jewish Americans (many of whom are my immediate family) can still sympathize with Palestinians and therefore Hamas and can support politicians like Harris who so obviously do too.
I don’t know who is making decisions but it seems unlikely bordering on no way that it’s Biden.