OPINION:
Watching President Biden mumble, dodder and wheeze his way through the Middle East this week was quite the spectacle. Watching him learn to read what appeared to be a foreign language on live television was painful on a human level for even his most ardent detractors.
It was like watching an old man picked up off the street and hauled before cameras to be waterboarded.
“Look, folks, I wanted to be here today for a simple reason: I wanted the people of Israel and the people of the world to know where the United States stands.”
Clear enough. Perhaps even eloquent — for Mr. Biden. But things quickly went off the rails when he began assigning blame for the terrorist attack on Israel that nobody disputes was carried out by Hamas terrorists who operate in the Gaza Strip, the territory that Hamas controls.
“They committed evils and atrocities that, uh, make ISIS” — Mr. Biden paused here, realizing he had created a complicated scenario where he would have to choose which terrorist organization he liked better.
“Uh,” he continued haltingly, “somewhat more rational.”
Worried that he might have offended the people back in Gaza who elected the terrorist organization Hamas to lead their territory, he quickly shifted gears.
“We have to bear in mind that Hamas does not represent all the Palestinian people and has brought them only suffering,” he said. He looked like he was swimming through a sea of kelp. (And nobody better suggest that the Palestinian election of Hamas was rigged or unfair, or else they will get thrown into an American jail for “insurrection.”)
The problem here is that whether the Palestinian people in Gaza like it or not, Hamas DOES represent them all. That’s what an elected government is — for better or for worse.
To bring this concept a little closer to home, it’s like Mr. Biden is to American voters. When he goes bumbling abroad and sparking wars around the world and has no idea where he is or what he is talking about, he is an embarrassment to ALL Americans — not just the Americans who voted for him.
Mr. Biden’s tour of clarity was not finished with his praise of ISIS.
“You know, uh, years ago, I asked the secretary of state when he and I were working in the Senate to write something for me and he wrote a line that I think is appropriate,” Mr. Biden said, off to a blistering start that got his mouth far out ahead of his brain.
Mr. Biden tried to proceed.
“He said, uh, it’s not — we lead, uh — not just, uh — well,” he paused in a knotted bramble of mental thicket.
“Well, I won’t go into it. I’ll wait till later,” he said looking around, confused. “I’m taking too much time.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looked on with patience, bordering on pity, bordering on alarm. Mr. Biden — the leader of the free world and Israel’s only true ally in a vicious neighborhood — appeared to be napping.
Mr. Biden woke up again. He began reading from notecards someone had left in his lap.
“But the point is: I was deeply saddened and outraged by the, uh, explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday.”
Again, Mr. Biden had wandered into a worrisome territory where he might have to assign blame.
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” he said, looking at Mr. Netanyahu.
Yes, he said “the other team.” Dear Lord, we have reached the End of Times. Somewhere in the Book of Revelations is a character named Joe Biden. As we speak, biblical scholars are working to figure out the correct translation.
Once again, Mr. Biden worried that perhaps he had been too clear in assigning blame. So he quickly scolded Mr. Netanyahu for the death and destruction at the hospital in Gaza that Mr. Netanyahu did not bomb.
“But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we got to overcome a lot of things,” he lectured the prime minister.
No single figure in all of history is more responsible for the carnage unfolding now in Israel that Mr. Biden himself. For a half-century, Mr. Biden has been one of Washington’s leading experts on foreign policy in the Middle East. His fingerprints have been on every catastrophe, every innocent death.
For 50 years, “peace in the Middle East” was an unattainable fantasy in the dull minds of Washington hacks like Mr. Biden. Bloodshed begat more bloodshed begat more bloodshed. With a combination of American prosperity, prowess and innovative, fresh thinking, former President Donald Trump brought true peace between Israel and some of her Arab neighbors through the Abraham Accords, which were opposed and scoffed at by experts like Mr. Biden.
Since getting elected, Mr. Biden has worked to undo all of Mr. Trump’s accomplishments, including American power and prosperity.
As he crippled America’s energy industry, he opened the oil spigots in Iran. As he taxed the hell out of American citizens, he paid Iran $6 billion for hostages. At every step, Mr. Biden has sided with terrorists and their financial backers against Israel and even America.
So it is little wonder that Mr. Biden is now left only to choose which terrorists he likes more.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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