OPINION:
“You know, there are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on the world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas — a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews. This was an act of sheer evil.”
That was President Biden last Oct. 10, speaking about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Today those words sound like they were spoken a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. By March 14, afraid that Mr. Biden’s election prospects would sink in swing states, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer took the unprecedented step of calling for “regime change” in Israel, a major non-NATO ally and the only democracy in the Middle East.
Mr. Schumer, New York Democrat, wants to tell Israelis when to have elections and whom to boot out. Likely planned by the administration, this speech could backfire. Badly. Imagine if, shortly after 9/11, a foreign leader called on Americans to impeach President George W. Bush.
We are not Benjamin Netanyahu supporters. The man presided over the worst security catastrophe in Israel’s history. In time, Israeli voters will send him packing. But Mr. Schumer used the Senate floor to make the case for removing the prime minister amid the worst war Israel has fought since 1948.
Mr. Schumer’s choice of time and target is telling. Israel. Not Iran, where the ayatollahs’ battle cry is “Death to Israel! Death to America!” Tehran’s fingers are deep in the Gaza Strip through its proxy Hamas. Its proxy Hezbollah is shooting hundreds of missiles at Israel, and its Houthi proxies in Yemen are engaged in piracy and terror on the high seas, with the Biden administration failing to stop them.
Mr. Schumer did not call for regime change in Russia, with its bloody two-year invasion and destruction of Ukraine, murders of opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and more recently Alexei Navalny, and threats of nuclear war.
Nor Turkey, with its strident support of Hamas, hungry to restore its former hegemony in the Middle East.
Nor Qatar, home to billionaire Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, with its tentacles of influence reaching out worldwide through Al Jazeera and funding for U.S. universities and think tanks.
No, the administration has decided the problem is Israel.
This switch didn’t flip overnight. It appears that the Biden administration is shifting to the Rashida Tlaib-Ilhan Omar position, painstakingly preparing the grounds for sanctions and U.N. pressure on Israel, and essentially doing Hamas’ bidding. Never mind whom Hamas raped and killed on Oct. 7. Never mind that the terrorists still hold hostages in the tunnels of Rafah. Never mind Hamas’ weaponization of food aid and its use of the Gaza population as human shields. This is an election year. Every vote counts.
The nosedive in U.S.-Israeli relations tracks to Hamas supporters threatening Mr. Biden with the prospect of retaliation come November. Early in February, with his standing in the polls flagging, he traveled to Michigan to pick up an endorsement from the United Auto Workers. He was met with a loud demonstration featuring signs reading “Genocide Joe.”
Administration big guns were shipped to Michigan on Feb. 8 to appease Arab American and Muslim leaders. The New York Times reported that Josh Finer, deputy national security adviser, “offered some of the administration’s clearest notes of contrition for its response to the Gaza war, a sign of rising Democratic pressure on President Biden.”
Later that day brought a hastily organized and poorly orchestrated presidential news conference after then-Justice Department special prosecutor Robert Hur declined to prosecute Mr. Biden over alleged mishandling of classified documents. He released a report describing the president as a “sympathetic, elderly man with a poor memory.” In the Q&A, Mr. Biden said, “I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, has been over the top.”
By mid-February, the U.S. was pushing for U.N. support of a temporary cease-fire in Gaza that would oppose an assault on Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold in Gaza, thus basically seeking to hinder Israel from actually winning its defensive war.
On Feb. 23, the administration reversed a U.S. policy, in place since 2019, that did not regard Israeli towns and villages in Judea and Samaria as illegal. On March 8, Mr. Biden said that he would have a “come to Jesus conversation” with Mr. Netanyahu over Rafah.
Surrendering to the far left is the worst thing the Biden campaign can do to the perception of America’s reliability as an ally and our deterrence as a foe. If this is how the U.S. treats its ally Israel, what are others in the Middle East — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates — to think? What should our friends in Europe think as they face Russian aggression?
What are leaders in Japan, India, Korea and the Philippines to think as China applies pressure against their countries? The self-destruction of America’s deterrence has already led to disasters in Afghanistan, Ukraine, and now the Middle East. It is time to stop pandering to terrorism supporters, restore relations with Israel, and rebuild America’s global standing.
• Ariel Cohen is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, managing director of the Energy, Growth and Security Program at the International Tax and Investment Center, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations. Rena Cohen founded the Books for Israel Project, a volunteer effort that provides English-language books for low-income Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze schools in Israel. She was born in Kibbutz Nachshon, Israel.
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