John Jefferson
President Joe Biden, fresh off an 18-day vacation, says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not done enough to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. He appears to blame Netanyahu for the cold-blooded execution of six hostages, including a U.S. citizen, as much as the Hamas thugs who pulled the trigger. That figures. While the president once vowed that U.S. support for the Jewish state was “rock solid,” more recently that support has crumbled as Biden has pushed for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza, damn the consequences.
When told of the hostage deaths, Biden issued a statement saying: “Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.” We’ll see.
Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ faltering backing of Israel and pandering to the pro-Palestinian mob has hindered IDF’s aggressive hunt for the Hamas beasts who murdered some 1,200 innocents on October 7 and for the hostages held in Gaza.
BIDEN CLAIMS NETANYAHU NOT DOING ENOUGH TO SECURE DEAL WITH TERRORISTS
For months, this feckless White House has pushed Netanyahu to make concessions that would leave Israel forever vulnerable to attack, refusing to acknowledge that it is Hamas that has refused to make a deal, not Israel.
In response to Biden, Netanyahu said, “On April 27th, Secretary of State Blinken said that, ‘Israel made an extraordinary, generous offer for a hostage deal.’ On May 31st, Israel agreed to a U.S.-backed proposal. Hamas refused. On August 16th, Israel agreed to what the United States defined as a ‘final bridging proposal.’ Hamas refused again. On August 19th, Secretary Blinken said, ‘Israel accepted the U.S. proposal. Now Hamas must do the same.’ On August 28th… Deputy CIA Director said that ‘Israel shows seriousness in the negotiations. Now Hamas must show the same seriousness.’” As Netanyahu angrily concluded, “what changed?”
What changed is not the morality of Israel’s cause but the political calculus. Support for Israel has dropped among the left wing of the Democratic Party – voters Harris needs to win in November. Biden is a weak president; Harris is even weaker, guided by polling instead of conviction. A candidate afraid of reporters and devoid of core values is not the person we want directing our military.
It is not just in Israel that Biden and Harris’ inept and fearful guidance have taken a toll. White House timidity has hobbled Ukraine’s war against Russia, emboldened China (remember the spy balloon?) and also left American troops vulnerable to attack in the Middle East.
It also led to the disgraceful withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left 13 service members dead – troops that Biden apparently forgot about when he bragged that there had been no military deaths on his watch. Harris proudly admits she was the “last person in the room” when the decision was made to abandon Bagram Air Force Base, abandon our thousands of Afghan advisors and contractors, and cede the country to the ruthless Taliban. Good for her.
Former President Ronald Reagan promoted “peace through strength,” making clear to our enemies that there would be severe repercussions for any aggression towards Americans. Former President Donald Trump followed that playbook; during his four years as president, the U.S. became once again a feared opponent, and the world was largely at peace. Americans have a choice: elect Trump, who kept our enemies guessing, severely reduced Iran’s capacity to foment war in the Middle East, intimidated China and negotiated constantly from a position of strength – or continue down the path of appeasement and half-measures.
Wilbur Ross, the Wall Street icon who served as secretary of Commerce under Trump, is on a book tour promoting his excellent memoir “Risk and Returns,” which chronicles his legendary career.
He recently recounted the first meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-President Trump, which took place at Mar-a-Lago. During the afternoon, Ross participated in a security council meeting in a secure room at the Palm Beach estate, at which the White House decided to bomb Syria in retaliation for the regime of President Bashar Assad using illegal nerve agents to attack his own people. Trump OK’d the plan proposed by his military and security advisers, but single-handedly decided on the timing of the attack.
As Ross tells it, Xi was delivering a lecture (through a translator) to the assembled dinner guests about how he would soon lead China to again dominate the world, when an aide delivered a note to Trump. The U.S. president interrupted Xi’s bombast to announce that 59 Tomahawk missiles had just destroyed Syria’s Shayrat Airbase, clearly startling China’s leader. Like Reagan sending American bombers to punish Libya for attacking American soldiers in a West Berlin nightclub, Trump delivered a message: do not mess with the U.S.
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That wasn’t a one-off. While negotiating the U.S. pull-out from Afghanistan, Trump says he gave Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar a satellite image of his home as a veiled warning; injure any Americans, and we will obliterate you while you sleep. He was taken seriously.
The contrast could not be starker. Instead of warning Russian President Vladimir Putin in stark terms to not invade Ukraine, Biden mused that if Putin only undertook a “minor incursion” into their neighbor, it might be acceptable, thereby all but inviting Russia’s tanks to roll.
Instead of enforcing Trump’s stern sanctions on Iran, Biden allowed Tehran’s oil exports to soar, giving the mullahs $30-$40 billion in extra revenues to fund the terror activities of Hezbollah, the Houthis and, certainly, Hamas.
U.S. troops in the region have been attacked almost 200 times over the past year. In January, three U.S. service members were killed in an overnight attack at a base in Jordan. “We know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups,” Biden said at the time.
Neither Biden nor Harris understands that great power can be used to deter conflict; that peace does indeed come from strength. As we have seen, neither can be trusted to keep our country or our allies safe.
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