Yes, Biden is Partially to Blame for Israel Going Up in Flames
Not everything can be traced to Washington, but the violence in Israel certainly can be.
To clearly follow geopolitics, one must understand two fundamental—and seemingly contradictory—truths. One, countries don’t exist in a vacuum; and two, not everything that happens is a direct consequence of actions taken by the United States. Many feel the temptation to point to Washington anytime something happens in the world, whether or not D.C. actually played a role in the event.
Since Monday, Hamas has launched more than 1,500 rockets towards Israel—some at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—according to Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an IDF spokesman. In response, the IAF has flown multiple airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, killing over a dozen top Hamas commanders and destroying multiple Hamas intelligence offices. Palestinian health ministry officials say 65 people have been killed in the airstrikes, including 16 children.
The Iron Dome, which has intercepted 90+ percent of the rockets shot into Israel, is seemingly beginning to get overwhelmed by the volume of rockets as several made it through and slammed into Ashkelon early Thursday morning. At least seven Israelis have died as a result of rockets and anti-tank missiles fired by Hamas and PIJ. One was a member of the IDF, and two were children, once as young as five years old. On Tuesday, a senior Israeli official was asked about reports that Hamas was interested in brokering a ceasefire. He responded, “Hamas fired a bunch of rockets, and then, of course, they want a ceasefire, that’s perfect for them, they don’t have to pay a price for firing on Jerusalem and then 500 rockets. There will be ceasefire when we’re ready for it.”
The violence in the skies has also led to violence in the streets as Jews and Arabs have clashed all over Israel and particularly in the central city of Lod. According to the Jerusalem Post, some 374 people have been arrested, and multiple people—Jews and Arabs—are in the hospital after being beaten by crazed mobs. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Lod, and while there, he pointed to a group of police and border patrol officers and told them to “stop the anarchy and bring back the rule of law to Israel’s cities with an iron fist if need be, with all the forces and authority necessary.”
So how did we get here? Multiple factors played into the biggest rise in tensions between Israel and the Palestinians since 2014. One, tensions began to rise after Israeli police blocked off the Damascus Gate during Ramadan to prohibit Muslims from gathering. This was in response to videos that had gone viral on TikTok showing groups of Palestinian youth beating elderly Orthodox Jews.
Two, the postponement of parliamentary elections by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who is now in the seventeenth year of his original four-year term. President Abbas knows that if the elections were to be held, his Fatah Party would very likely be swept out, and Hamas would take power. The postponement further angered Hamas and the grassroots Palestinian movement.
Three, the eviction of Palestinian squatters from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and the presence of Jews at the al-Aqsa Mosque. The Palestinians claim Sheikh Jarrah is theirs, and the “occupying Zionists” are driving them from their homes. In reality, the land was purchased by the Jews pre-1948 and then captured by Jordan in the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Israel then recaptured the land during the 1967 Six-Day War. The land is not Arab land; it is very clearly Jewish land, and those being evicted now are squatters who have refused to pay rent.
Four, Joe Biden. Not everything leads back to the White House, but in this case, it certainly does. President Biden is emboldening Hamas by signaling that this administration does not support Israel like past administrations.
We see this in the administration’s efforts to rejoin the disastrous Iran Nuclear Deal despite intense protest from the Israeli government. We see it in Biden’s unexplainable declaration that the Houthis—the Iranian-backed rebel force in Yemen—are not terrorists. We see it in President Biden waiting nearly a month after taking office to call Prime Minister Netanyahu. “Joe, I’m glad you called! I was getting worried,” Netanyahu reportedly told Biden during their first conversation.
“All of this signals to the Iran-backed Hamas fighters: now is the time to fire rockets and gain global recognition and support for your asserted grievances,” former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday.
President Trump and Jared Kushner negotiated the breakthrough Abraham Accords and left the White House with relative peace in the Middle East. Iran was weakened through the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign, and Israel was making peace with its Sunni Arab neighbors.
And then Biden came in. It is not a coincidence that three months after Biden takes office, the region goes up in flames. Biden is turning his back on the Jews and embracing the radical mullahs in Tehran who are supplying Hamas and the PIJ with the rockets they are firing at Israel.
“Reentering the JCPOA,” Pompeo said, “as we can now taste in Gaza, is the action that will reduce peace and create the conditions to cause a war that could escalate to include many countries.”
Yes, Biden is partially to blame for Israel going up in flames.
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