OPINION:
The bodies of Jewish children who were raped, decapitated and mutilated have barely been identified. Hostages — including Americans — remain unaccounted for. Yet President Biden wants to have summit meetings and flies around the world playing Franklin Roosevelt. It’s absurd.
The people of Israel and all those who are enemies of Iran, Russia and China don’t need photo ops that attempt to make a tired man appear in command.
Israelis need our patience and resolve. Israel must be allowed to defend itself in a way that respects its right as a sovereign nation to do whatever it takes to eliminate the terrorist threats to its people.
They don’t need back-channel meetings to push de-escalation or disengagement. They don’t need social media diplomacy and quips that create an equivalency between Israel and terrorists. They don’t need closed-door finger-wagging and forgettable speeches laced with politics.
This is a defining moment in the lives of millions, but Mr. Biden is desperately searching for the defining moment of his presidency.
He thinks in terms of his own politics and how a protracted war in Israel, together with the largest ground war in Europe since World War II, will affect his reelection bid. He’s thinking about the politics of the increasingly loud anti-Israel and antisemitic movement in the Democratic Party.
He’s strongly influenced by Obama acolytes who, despite the carnage, still think the world can be a 1970s Coke commercial.
No matter what Mr. Biden says, Israel is already worried about losing U.S. and international support just weeks into this war.
The White House reaction to the Gaza hospital bombing is a clear example of the Biden administration’s two-faced foreign policy. Without knowing the facts about the source of the rockets that hit the site, the White House felt compelled to release a statement to say the obvious about civilian casualties.
The duplicitousness of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration can be seen in its support for Iran’s nuclear program, billions in funding that would naturally support terrorism, and increased foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority — despite its insistence that Israel cease to exist.
Even as the intelligence community was hearing chatter about the attack on Israel, the Biden administration gave $75 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, an organization that critics have accused of being controlled by Islamic terrorist groups. He now wants $100 million for aid to Palestinians.
In Israel, Mr. Biden raised the specter of “mistakes” made in times of war. In WWII, as the United States stormed across Europe and the Pacific to defeat the Nazis, mistakes were made. Civilians were killed. But those mistakes did not shake our focus on settling for anything less than the destruction of Hitler’s regime.
Mr. Biden would do well to deal with the rise of Marxism, moral relativism, and antisemitism, as well as an erosion of our sovereignty here at home, rather than attempt to run Israel’s war with Washington think tankers.
Of course, since those domestic movements have a home in the Democratic Party, he won’t touch them.
Americans are concerned about the escalation of this war, and they should be. They need to come to grips with the fact that China, Russia, Iran and its proxies are working in concert to destabilize the world. Islamic terrorism knows no boundaries. It doesn’t discriminate. China and Russia benefit from the death and chaos that are those groups’ stock-in-trade.
The left has helped create today’s philosopher culture, one that no longer has the stomach to fight evil.
At this moment, Russia is using the war in Israel to solidify its position in Ukraine, and the Chinese are testing U.S. resolve. The Pentagon reported last week that the number of provocative and coercive actions by Chinese jet fighters over the last two years has been more than the entire decade before.
Peace cannot be achieved with those who believe it runs counter to their interests. It cannot be achieved by people who don’t respect the rights of Jews, Christians or democratic societies to exist in the first place. It cannot truly be achieved by capitulating to authoritarians.
As a nation, we can choose patience, toughness and moral clarity, or we can think that changing our profile pictures and photo ops for a few days will vanish this cancer on humanity. We can choose to back our carefully chosen words with decisive actions that demonstrate strength, or we can mumble and shuffle our way through diplomacy that will only weaken our resolve.
Mr. Biden wants the war in Israel to save his failed presidency. If past behavior is any indication of future performance, his duplicity will make it worse, not better.
• Tom Basile is the host of “America Right Now” on Newsmax and the author of “Tough Sell: Fighting the Media War in Iraq.”
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