Biden to Israel: Forget your existential concerns; I’ve got an election to win!
Axios has a scoop, but I call it a bombshell: According to a Biden administration official, when it comes to the Biden administration’s approach to Israel, the most important thing is Biden winning his election. Little things like an ally’s fight against an openly genocidal enemy or stability within the always volatile Middle East? Meh. What matters is power.
Here are the main points from the Axios essay:
President Biden last week pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to scale down the Israeli military operation in Gaza, stressing he is not in it for a year of war, two U.S. officials told Axios.
Why it matters: Biden's comments during the two leaders' call last Friday reflect the growing U.S. concern about the continuation of the war and the president's desire to see it end long before the November elections.
- A Biden adviser told Axios the White House is very concerned about losing young voters, many of whom are opposed to the president's policy on the Gaza war.
- A source close to the White House said Biden can't have the war and the growing death toll to continue dominating the news cycle as the elections get closer.
This is the same administration that has been comfortable for two years now funding Ukraine in its non-winnable war against Russia—and, indeed, Biden has promised to fund Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” The Ukraine war, of course, is not an existential war for Ukraine. It began because Russia wanted to achieve control over a border region that is almost entirely ethnically Russian and that has been the site of aggressive Ukrainian action against the people living there.
As Steven Kopits wrote here before that war ever began, the whole thing could have been resolved if Russia had simply purchased the disputed territory. Biden’s administration, however, was always determined to go to war and had no interest in pursuing alternatives.
Things are a bit different in Israel. Since the moment the UN recognized her existence, the surrounding Muslim nations have been open about their desire to eradicate her presence from the face of the earth, including killing all her Jewish residents. To date, the Muslims have tried this in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2006, and October 7 (and that doesn’t include the non-stop terrorism attacks and Intifadas within Israel’s borders since the 1970s). Additionally, Hamas, which Iran funds, has told its supporters to kill Jews wherever they find them, not just in Israel, something in line with Mohamed’s order to that effect.
As an old Jewish man is reported to have said when he walked out of Auschwitz, “When someone says they want to kill you, believe them.” And yet Joe Biden has told a long-standing American ally that its neighbors’ genocidal intentions are irrelevant. All that matters is that Biden gets reelected.
Stopping genocide? Well, it’s Jews, so who cares?
World security? Biden is leading from behind, so he’s no longer interested.
Hearing “Hail to the Chief” when he walks into the room or satisfying Mrs. Joe Biden’s desire for perpetual prestige? Yup, those are winners.
Another priority for his administration is making sure that the man on whose watch the world is exploding and imploding still manages to lead his party to another victory.
I’ve never liked or respected Joe Biden. Indeed, I disliked him so thoroughly that I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel even greater disdain for him. But with this revelation that Biden will abandon an ally fighting for its life as a nation and for the lives of every one of its citizens because he’s got to make some screaming, neurotic, genocidally hate-filled young people vote for him…well, it turns out that there are scum-filled depths of moral depravity that Biden has yet to plumb.
The problem for Israel is that, while it has the weapons, America—that is, Biden—controls a great deal of the ammo for those weapons. It’s to be hoped that Israel has some tricks up her sleeve to offset that problem because Biden has once again proven that having the U.S. as your ally, at least under a Democrat administration, is utterly meaningless.
Image: Biden and Netanyahu. YouTube screen grab.