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.
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