OPINION:
As thousands of rocket attacks indiscriminately rain down on Israel from Hamas, President Joe Biden’s defense of our democratic ally has been muted at best, as others within his party openly question the U.S.’s steadfast loyalty to Israel.
Democrats, in their misguided prioritization of social-justice causes and a renewed deal with Iran, are undercutting Israel’s sovereignty and undermining our national security. It’s indefensible.
First, the U.S. can and should have compassion for the Palestinian people, but to make them the primary focus in Israel’s fight against Hamas — a terrorist organization that has called for the destruction of Israel — only weakens our ally.
Yet, progressives continue to focus on the Palestinian cause, either because they’ve become too brainwashed with social justice campaigns like Black Lives Matter to see international issues clearly, or more sinisterly, don’t really believe in Israel’s right to exist.
“We oppose our money going to fund militarized policing, occupation and systems of violent oppression and trauma,” Rep. Cori Bush, Missouri Democrat, said in a House speech last week. “Until all our children are safe, we will continue to fight for our rights in Palestine and in Ferguson.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Democrat, directly challenged President Biden when he said Israel had the right to defend itself by asking: “Do Palestinians have a right to survive? Do we believe that? And if so, we have a responsibility to that as well.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders took to the op-ed pages of The New York Times, arguing “The U.S. must stop being an apologist for the [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu government,” accusing Mr. Netanyahu of cultivating “an increasingly intolerant and authoritarian type of racist nationalism.”
Again, these are false choices coming from the progressive left, which will foster no peace.
Hamas is a terrorist organization, sponsored by Iran, which uses the Palestinian people as shields, and operates out of civilian schools, homes and offices in Gaza. Hamas doesn’t care about the Palestinian people — it uses them as props. It steals from them to buy rockets.
Hamas and the Palestinian Authority also aren’t interested in peace, as they’ve refused to even participate in formal talks for years. Hamas’ goal is simple: The destruction of Israel.
After an unprovoked attack by Hamas on Israel’s National Day in Jerusalem, Israel had every right to retaliate. And its retaliation has been impressively restrained and precise, as to be as humanitarian as possible.
No Associated Press reporters were killed when Israel targeted their Gaza headquarters, a building that was being occupied by Hamas intelligence, because the organization was given advanced notification of the strike.
Yet there was still outcry against our ally by the mainstream media and by Sen. Robert Menendez, the New Jersey Democrat who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee.
“You know, if Hamas would simply move these rockets out of the civilian areas, if they moved their command posts out of these homes and offices, then there wouldn’t be any problem,” Mr. Netanyahu rightly said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday. He then went on to explain how the criticisms against Israel only embolden Hamas.
“When the international community attacks Israel, they’re actually encouraging Hamas to continue these attacks because Hamas says it’s great, we’re both killing Israeli civilians and unfortunately, some of our own — and they’re happy with their own civilian casualties because it gets the international community to focus their attacks on Israel instead of Hamas,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Yet, it seems the Democrats’ goal is to distract from Hamas. Exposing Hamas for what it is, after all, could undermine Democrats’ efforts to ink a renewed deal with Iran by souring public opinion.
The rockets that hit Tel Aviv last week were likely the Fajr-5 rocket, developed by Iran. According to Israeli reports, Iran gives about $30 million a month to Hamas. That money isn’t used to improve the lives of the Palestinian people, but to build terror tunnels into Israel and buy weaponry.
The U.S. Special Envoy to Iran, Rob Malley, has even gone so far as to defend Hamas saying: “It’s a mistake to only think about [Hezbollah and Hamas] in their terrorist violence dimension … it has a charity organization, a social branch … there’s so much misinformation about them.”
Misinformation being spread by the Biden administration, all too eager to sit down with Iran to resurrect an Obama-era deal.
Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East and one of our staunchest allies in the region, deserves unequivocal support from the U.S. government. Unfortunately, the Biden administration doesn’t seem interested in providing it to them.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.