That shameful Austin-Blinken letter to Israel

 I saw this coming a year ago. 

As soon as Israel commenced its response to the horrors of October 7, 2023, I could see the trajectory. In the initial phase, the Biden administration was forthrightly supportive. But I knew that as soon as Israel had to zap some schools and hospitals in Gaza - because the staffs, students and patients in those building were being used as human shields by Hamas, and that's where the weapons caches and operations centers were - the tone from Washington would change. And it followed the same pattern as the US response to previous Israeli responses to Hamas attacks. "Hey, guys, you've sent a proportional message. That's about enough." "Take the win" and such.

The letter that the US Secretaries of State and defense sent to the Israeli government takes this clueless hubris a step further:

On the one hand, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the U.S. would be sending an advanced anti-missile system to Israel, along with troops to operate it, to bolster the defense against Iran. On the other hand, Biden has been pressuring Israel into a more limited response to Iran’s second ballistic-missile attack in five months, including publicly opposing an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In the midst of this, Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a joint letter to Israeli officials — promptly released publicly — chastising Israel for not ensuring enough humanitarian aid in Gaza and warning that if Israel does not meet the administration’s demands within 30 days, the U.S. could suspend aid to Israel. Conveniently, this would place the potential aid-suspension date a week after the November 5 election.

In other words, Harris can spend the closing weeks of the presidential election arguing to the pro-Hamas caucus that the administration has put Israel on notice while still claiming to supporters of Israel that no decision has been made to suspend aid.

The substance of the letter places the blame for insufficient aid getting into the hands of Gazans on Israel, claiming that Israelis are creating too many barriers to aid entering the strip. Yet Israel must vet aid going in because Hamas has historically used aid deliveries to smuggle in weapons. Also, Hamas inhibits the flow of aid within Gaza, looting delivery trucks and hoarding food and supplies for their own fighters.

The Austin-Blinken letter also criticizes various steps Israel has taken against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, even though evidence points to employees of UNRWA having participated in the October 7 attacks.

I strive to prevent cynicism from affecting my objectivity, but I think we're on safe ground assuming a connection between the neck-and-neck state of the presidential race in Michigan and the equivocation eroding its support for Israel. 

I spent two nights in Dearborn recently. My wife and I took a road trip to visit the Motown Museum in Detroit. Staff in our hotel, in restaurants, in convenience stores, were nearly to a person of Arab ethnicity. In a hookah lounge where we had an excellent dinner, our server was a young Iraqi woman and the young man tending our hookah was Egyptian. They were personable and on top of their jobs. Indeed, most Dearborn Middle Easterners we dealt with were pretty worldly. Young men and young women interacted on an equal footing and were completely comfortable around each other. 

But if any of them vote next month, I think we can be reasonably sure regarding the party they will push the button for.

And maybe even more than the hip young Arabs of Dearborn, the Democrats are concerned about the votes of the snot-nosed white post-American students at campuses such as UCLA and Columbia. 

It's all so sick. To reiterate some basics, Israel is the only Western nation in the Middle East. It provides the Jerusalem component of the Jerusalem-Athens formulation of the West's development. It is a tech hub. Arabs serve in the Knesset. It has dealt with frequent wars with neighbors since the day of the founding of its iteration as a modern nation-state in 1948. 

The Biden administration's moral preening regarding Gaza aid led to an empty gesture that cost you and me tax dollars when that stupid pier didn't pan out. And stories abound about Hamas highjacking of food-aid trucks.

Let us hope Netanyahu, Gallant et al keep their eyes on victory - in Gaza, up north in Lebanon, and in the overarching menace from Iran - and keep the Biden administration at a healthy distance. 

 

The breathtaking uselessness of Antony Blinken

 Your tax dollars went for a whole lotta jet fuel in the service of an ill-conceived mission:

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken returned to the Mideast this week pressing for agreements to extend the Gaza cease-fire, step up the release of hostages held by Hamas and limit Palestinian civilian casualties if fighting with Israel resumed. He left Friday with his goals largely unfulfilled. 

Blinken wrapped up his third Middle East tour since the Israel-Hamas war started in October with decidedly mixed results. He watched as the seven-day cease-fire agreement collapsed under new Hamas attacks and Israeli airstrikes. 

And, it remained uncertain if Israel would follow through on commitments to protect Palestinian civilians from military operations in the southern Gaza Strip, as he warned they should, or whether Hamas would engage in future hostage negotiations. 

Blinken arrived in Israel on Thursday with hopes to see a further extension of the cease-fire agreement under which Israel had halted most military operations in exchange for the release of hostages held by Hamas.

Blinken said Friday that Hamas bore the blame for the failure while the U.S. would continue to push for extensions to release hostages and boost the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Yet, he also warned Israel that it must adhere to international laws of war as it prosecutes its campaign to eradicate Hamas.

And he's still, after Palestinians have given the thumbs-down to the 1937 Peel Commission proposal and the 1947 UN partition plan, and after the 2000 failure of the Ehud Barak-Yasir Arafat-Bill Clinton summit,  to name the three most noteworthy offers, prattling about an end goal of a Palestinian state:

“It is important for us to be talking about and thinking about every aspect of this challenge – not only today but also what happens the day after the conflict in Gaza is over,” Blinken said. “How are we thinking about what happens in Gaza itself? How is it governed? Where does the security come from? How do we begin to rebuild? And critically, how we get on a path to invest in lasting peace. And for us, of course, that has to result in a state for the Palestinians.”

Broaching that subject weeks after the Hamas assault of October 7 demonstrates that Blinken is considerably over his skis.

Don't we need to focus on more immediate concerns such as this? 

Four people were killed and five were wounded Thursday, one of them seriously, in a terror shooting attack claimed by Hamas at the entrance to Jerusalem, police and medics said.

One of those killed was a civilian who fired at the terrorists and was mistaken by other responders for one of the shooters.

The victims were named later as Livia Dikman, 24, Ashdod rabbinical judge Elimelech Wasserman, 73, and Hannah Ifergan, who was in her 60s. The civilian hit by friendly fire was named as Yuval Doron Castleman, 38.

According to police, at around 7:40 a.m., two Palestinian gunmen got out of a vehicle on Weizmann Boulevard at the main entrance to the capital and opened fire at people at a bus stop.

We can take some heart that voices of moral clarity can be found in some corners. To wit, this response to the Blinken-ist approach from Representative Mike Gallagher R-WI:

“In his press conference in Israel today, Secretary Blinken repeatedly emphasized that Hamas cannot retain governance of Gaza. He is wrong. Hamas cannot remain at all. This is an irrefutable point that was avoided throughout his entire speech. 

“It has been nearly two months since Hamas launched a barbaric attack against Israel, but rather than hold Hamas accountable for killing innocent Palestinians and Israelis, the Biden administration seems to spend more time publicly shaming the Israeli government for civilian casualties than punishing a murderous organization. This weakness will not only benefit Hamas but also do something I never believed was possible after the President’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan: worsen our reputation in the Middle East. 

“If this administration wants to 'create conditions for durable and lasting peace' for both Palestinians and Israelis, they must fully support the destruction of Hamas. Hamas's existence is incompatible with the 'two-state solution' they seek because Hamas believes any Jew's existence is incompatible with life. Rather than lay the groundwork for what appears to be the strategic withdrawal of or heavy conditioning of American support for Israeli military efforts, the Biden administration should be doing everything possible to ensure the swift and complete elimination of a terrorist organization that is happily murdering children and putting their citizens in harm's way to achieve more mass murder.”

Exactly so. 

Wobbliness in support of the obvious goal further erodes the US role as guarantor of a rules-based international order, which has been in worsening shape for some time.