OPINION:
Israel has just faced the worst terrorist attack in its history, with the largest mass murder of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust. And the United States has a choice to make: will it stand with its ally, Israel, and the civilized world? Or will it continue to appease Iran and its proxies in all their barbarity? The U.S. can no longer pretend to do both.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups infiltrated Israel’s southern border, committing mass atrocities while hundreds of rockets were launched at civilians. The stories and imagery—the terrorists filmed, even live streamed, their handiwork—are beyond grotesque.
Children were shot in front of their parents. Men and women were murdered in their homes. One elderly disabled woman was set on fire in her house. One granddaughter found out that her grandmother was murdered after a terrorist uploaded pictures to the dead woman’s phone and shared them. At one outdoor festival, 260 civilians were massacred, many gunned down while running or hiding. Women were raped on the corpses of their dead friends. Terrorists proudly broadcast footage of their atrocities, including women being loaded up, their pants bloodied, to be taken back to Gaza as hostages.
Current casualty estimates indicate that more than 900 were killed and thousands more wounded. To put that into perspective, that is the equivalent of more than 25,000 Americans being murdered—in one day. When other Islamist terrorists, al-Qaeda, perpetrated the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered.
Importantly, the victims weren’t just Israeli. Hamas and its allies murdered Americans, Europeans, and others too.
More than 150 Israelis have also been taken hostage and brought to Gaza. A still untold number of Americans and other nationalities are among them.
And Hamas had lots of help. Other U.S.-designated terror groups took part, including the Popular Resistance Committees and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, among others. All receive support from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has called for Israel’s destruction. Indeed, some were directly created by Iran, whose Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has provided training and weapons.
Israel may also be facing a multi-front war. Iran’s foremost proxy, Hezbollah, de facto controls Lebanon and possesses more than 150,000 rockets, its armaments exceeding those of many countries. Like Hamas, Hezbollah has a documented history of using human shields. Iran also has proxies in nearby Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, as well as in the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank.
In many respects, this is the gravest challenge that Israel has faced in its history. Regrettably, it is a predicament born from U.S. policy decisions.
Iran has been able to finance its plan to envelop and destroy Israel thanks to Western appeasement of its theocratic dictatorship. The Biden administration ended the sanctions regime that the Trump administration had put in place, issuing waivers, and limiting enforcement. More recently, the administration paid out $6 billion to the regime in exchange for some hostages that Iran had taken. As Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, has noted, in total the administration has filled Iran’s coffers to the tune of at least $50 billion. And now we know how they’ve spent it.
This mistaken policy dates to the Obama administration. Obama didn’t just want an agreement with Iran over its illegal nuclear weapons program. Nor did the administration merely want détente with a country responsible for murdering and maiming American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather, as the Middle East analysts Michael Doran and Tony Badran convincingly argued, the Obama administration wanted a complete “realignment.”
The Islamic Republic is an imperialist power that seeks to overthrow America’s Arab allies and expand across the Middle East. Obama, however, said that Iran and Saudi Arabia need to “share the neighborhood.” But “sharing” isn’t in Iran’s vocabulary.
The regime has plotted and carried out attacks on nearly every continent, including Latin America and Europe. Iranian plots to attack JFK Airport in New York and blow up a restaurant in D.C. to murder the then-Saudi Ambassador were disrupted. Notably, none of Iran’s efforts changed the Obama team’s calculus.
More recently, the U.S. disrupted Iranian plans to murder former U.S. officials, journalists, and dissidents on American soil. But this failed to disrupt the Biden administration’s efforts to accommodate Iran. Ditto for another Israel-Hamas War back in 2021.
It is time to reverse course. Robert Greenway, a former senior director of the National Security Council who is now at the Heritage Foundation, has noted that “it is time for the White House to choose.” The United States “can support our closest ally in the region and its only democracy or appease and fund the world’s state sponsor of terrorism.”
Greenway added: “The Biden administration cannot continue to support Tehran materially and Israel rhetorically.” The barbarity of Hamas and other Iranian patrons has made that all too clear.
- The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis
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