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President Joe Biden traveled to Israel on Wednesday, Oct. 18, to broadcast U.S. support for Israel and to facilitate an agreement to deliver urgent humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip via Egypt. Biden also moved U.S. military assets into the region to deter any party from escalating this conflict into a regional war, namely Iran and its proxies.
Straight Arrow News contributor Ben Weingarten argues that the Biden administration has actually empowered Hamas and Iran and that any humanitarian aid moving from Egypt into Gaza for the besieged civilians there will just be seized by Hamas fighters. He also implores the United States to stop dictating the terms of Israel’s military choices in Gaza.
As I argued, supporting Israel against Iran and its proxies is totally anathema to this administration. Its policy was exactly the opposite, enabling Hamas’s attack and undermining America’s national interest.
I’ve noted that the bear hug could be seen in the administration’s reflexive calls for a ceasefire; its defending the $6 billion ransom payment to Iran; and its attempt to delink Hamas’s attack from its Iranian backers.
The evidence has only grown since of a bear hug. Administration officials have emphasized their desire for a “proportionate” Israeli response to Hamas’s savagery. What is proportionate exactly to murders of the equivalent of 45,000 Americans — and the beheading, burning and butchering of innocents?
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and others have conveyed to the Israelis that the U.S. will “find it difficult to support a military operation in Gaza that involves widespread harm to civilians” — this in an urban setting where Hamas has explicitly set up its infrastructure in hospitals, schools and other population centers to ensure maximum loss of life for propaganda purposes.
The Pentagon has also stressed that Israel “adhere to the law of war” — as if Israel wouldn’t, and its genocidal jihadist foes would.
The message is clear: You can fight Hamas, but once Hamas produces footage of dead non-combatants, we’re going to turn our back on you.
