RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17392/biden-administration-israel-enemy

Biden made no distinction between a democratic ally of the United States and a terrorist organization he did not even name. He spoke as if he did not know that the calm was broken by a terrorist organization and by no one else, and that what prevents Palestinians from having freedom, prosperity and democracy is precisely that they are ruled by terrorists and people who supports terrorism.

On April 7, a US Department of State press statement said that the Biden administration had decided to restore US financial “aid to Palestinians”, without requiring that American money not be used for terrorist purposes….

The appointment to the post of Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs of Hady Amr, a man who has accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid”, and said that he was “inspired by intifada”, seemed to confirm that the Biden administration would not be particularly “pro-Israel”…. Amr met Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Muhammad Ishtayya in Ramallah to negotiate the use of US financial aid to the PA while Israel was under missile fire….

In a PBS interview on April 2, one of the American negotiators, Robert Malley, announced that he wants “to remove those sanctions that are inconsistent with the deal”, “so that Iran enjoys the benefits that it was supposed to enjoy”. Nothing shows that the Biden administration has changed that position.

There were no threats to stop the new funding he had promised the Palestinians until they stopped firing rockets. He did not threaten to withdraw his promise of an office in Washington DC for them.

Most unsettling of all, while Iran’s proxy, Hamas, was raining nearly 4,000 rockets and missiles into a country the size of New Jersey, the US was engaged in talks in Vienna to discuss how much money the US was prepared to give Iran – to buy more weapons to batter Israel again?

Seemingly to destabilize Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the US administration made public a report accusing the him of being responsible for the murder of the anti-Saudi writer, Jamal Khashoggi, without specifying that Khashoggi was an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood, an arch-enemy of the House of Saud.

A recent article by Michael Doran and Tony Badran on Tablet explains why Israel needs to stay on guard and be ready to act decisively. A project designed during the Obama presidency and aiming to “create a new Middle Eastern order” seems to be underway. It would place the interests of Iran over those of US allies in the Middle East, thereby leading to the hegemony in the region of Iran. The project would erode new the Abraham Accords, push Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to come to an agreement with Iran and involve “forcing Israel into a more passive posture in the face of Iran’s rising power”. Is this project that the Biden administration is now implementing?

“[I]n war and conflict, one side wins and one side loses…. Israel must do what all nations… are doing to achieve victory: beating its enemy….” — Daniel Pipes, historian, Commentary, January 2017.

The Biden administration acts as if it does not see that it puts Israel and other longtime American allies in danger; it acts as if it does not see that behind Iran and the mullahs, China is on the move.

Is the Biden administration about to seriously diminish the status of the United States and the Free World to herald in a new world order that is radical and monstrous?

May 10, 6.07 pm. Six missiles fired by Iran’s proxy militia, Hamas from the Gaza Strip fly into Israel and quickly become more numerous. Most were destroyed by the Iron Dome, but not all. Within a week more than 3,000 missiles had been fired by Hamas. Some caused deaths, injuries and destruction. Hamas’s goal was to exhaust the capabilities of the Iron Dome and cause as many civilian casualties as possible. To that end, it targeted Tel Aviv at night when people are asleep. Without the Iron Dome, there would have been thousands of deaths. Hamas has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/20/about-those-doa-abraham-accords/

It is hard to be against a peace agreement. Really hard. But the Biden Administration is giving it a go. 

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki slammed Donald Trump’s policies in the Middle East and called the Israel-United Arab Emirates-Bahrain Abraham Accords “DOA.”

“We felt there was not a constructive action by the prior administration, aside from putting forward a peace proposal that was dead on arrival. We don’t think they did anything constructive really to bring it into the long-standing conflict in the Middle East.”

Psaki appears to be channeling Washington Post columnist Max Boot. “The clashes in recent days between Israelis and Palestinians make clear that there is no ‘peace’ and no ‘new Middle East.’ It remains the same blood-soaked mess as ever. The Abraham Accords were nice, but they did nothing to resolve underlying conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Libya—or the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

It is understandable that critics choose not to consider the accords in their own context. Yemen, Syria, and Libya weren’t on the table. Neither was world hunger, relief for China’s Uighurs, or the U.S. national debt. And, deliberately, neither were the Palestinians. 

In the immediate aftermath of the September 2020 signing, a horde of pundits and politicians including Samantha Power, John Kerry, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Representative Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), and media including Reuters, CNN, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy, the Guardian and more, spewed their litany about how much more dangerous the region had become and how the United States was doomed to fail. They are joined now by Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Bernie Sanders (again), and others.

They are wrong.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/bidens-handlers-get-ceasefire-they-wanted-robert-spencer/

He demanded it, and he got it: CNN reported Wednesday that according to the White House, Old Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “‘that he expected a significant de-escalation today on the path to a ceasefire’ in the raging violence. The statement was a signal Biden is losing patience with Netanyahu, a leader he has known for four decades.” It’s hard to believe the Most Beloved President in History could hold that coherent a conversation, but whatever may be the truth behind this, Biden’s handlers got their ceasefire. According to Reuters on Thursday, “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said his security cabinet had voted unanimously in favour of a ‘mutual and unconditional’ Gaza truce proposed by Egypt.” Nevertheless, the chief beneficiary of the respite is not Israel, but Hamas.

Taher Al-Nono, media adviser to Hamas top dog Ismail Haniyeh, sounded a decidedly tepid note with a hint of a threat, saying: “The Palestinian resistance will abide by this agreement as long as the Occupation (Israel) does the same.” Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, was less successful in hiding his enthusiasm: “With the help of God, we were able to humiliate the enemy, its fragile entity and its savage army.”

Abu Ubaida doesn’t have anything he can point to in order to justify this claim of victory. Netanyahu stated: “They received blows that they didn’t expect. And I have no doubt we set them back years.” There is no reason to doubt his word. While Hamas did succeed in firing more rockets at Israel than ever before, most of them were stopped by the Iron Dome Missile Defense System; few did serious damage. 

However, the chief indication to which Abu Ubaida can point in order to justify his claim that Israel has been humiliated is the fact of the ceasefire itself. This is because an Islamic army, which Hamas undoubtedly is, doesn’t ask for or want a ceasefire unless it is losing. And Hamas, according to Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen, was “begging for a ceasefire.” 

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a group of like-minded colleagues want to sink the proposed $735-million sale of a Boeing-built arms guidance kit to Israel.  The Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) kit converts unguided or “dumb” bombs into precision-guided munitions.  The goal, according to Politico, is “leverage to push the Israelis to drop their resistance to a ceasefire.”

In fact, Israel’s resistance is not to a ceasefire, but to the continued rocket attacks by Hamas into Israeli civilian centers.  The Biden administration has no leverage at all with Hamas and is pushing desperately for an Iran deal, which precludes asking Iran to rein in its Hamas terror-proxy.  For America to consider punishing Israel is nasty at best and counterproductive of AOC’s stated goal at worst.  Would she prefer that Israel use “dumb” bombs to defend itself and its people?

We’ve seen this before.

In 2009, Barak Obama’s administration blocked delivery of six Apache helicopters to Israel on the grounds that Israel might use them in Gaza.

During Israel’s 2014 response to Hamas rockets and mortars fired into Israel, President Obama accused Israel of “heavy-handed battlefield tactics” and halted the supply of Hellfire missiles.  Military equipment supplied to Israel would also have to be vetted individually in the White House instead of shipped by the Pentagon according to prior agreements.  The irony of withholding precision missiles — precision being the operative word — was lost on the White House.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17382/biden-hamas-islamic-jihad

Second, was the Biden administration’s offer to resume negotiations with Iran to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, enabling Iran, in a few years, to have unlimited nuclear weapons — while ignoring Iran’s continual breaches of the deal. The administration also apparently ignored Iran’s harassment of American naval vessels. In fact, as if the US is about to reward Iran for all that.

Earlier this year, the Gulf Cooperation Council expressed deep concern over the Houthi terrorist attacks on Saudi Arabia and called on Iran to stop its efforts to destabilize the security and stability of the Arab countries by supporting terrorist groups. This appeal, however, appears to have been ignored by the US and other Western powers.

“The Houthis and their Iranian backers think that the American move was the result of their military perseverance and a reflection of their superiority in the field. Moreover, the two sides (the Houthis and Iran) understood the measure as an indication of the new American administration’s soft position towards them and bias against Saudi Arabia… Such messages enhance Houthis conviction that force is the key factor…. Revoking the Houthi designation without receiving anything in return raises the question about the efficiency of decision-making in this administration. In addition, revoking the designation of Houthis sends a message that Biden might return to Obama’s hesitant and weak policy.” — Emirates Policy Center (EPC) report, March 13, 2021.

Buoyed by the decision to resume the financial aid with no conditions attached, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are now convinced that the Biden administration’s next move will be to rescind Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. That is why the Palestinians have chosen to call the current wave of attacks on Israel as the “Jerusalem Uprising.”

A number of decisions taken by the Biden administration — who were handed peace in the Middle East, US energy independence, secure borders, the blueprint for a booming economy, and American adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran on the defensive — have managed, in four short months, to blow most of that up.

Some of these decisions have apparently emboldened Iran and a number of its terrorist proxies.

First was the decision to revoke the designation of the Iranian-backed Houthi group in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization.

Second, was the Biden administration’s offer to resume negotiations with Iran to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, enabling Iran, in a few years, to have unlimited nuclear weapons — while ignoring Iran’s continual breaches of the deal. The administration also apparently ignored Iran’s harassment of American naval vessels. In fact, as if the US is about to reward Iran for all that.

Third, came the resumption of $235 million in financial aid to the Palestinians — with no conditions attached.

These decisions, coupled with others, have evidently been interpreted by Iran and the Islamist terrorist groups as a sign of US weakness, as well as a green light for one of their proxies, the Houthis, to step up their missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia.

“The [Biden administration’s] decision encouraged the Houthi militia to go ahead with targeting Saudi Arabia,” Yemeni researcher Dr. Adel Dashila said.

“The Houthi militia would not have dared to carry out such attacks had it remained on the list of terrorist groups. The decision to remove the Houthi militia from the list also boosted its diplomatic and political status.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/when_it_comes_to_israel_bidens_actions_speak_louder_than_words.html

For the first few days after Hamas started raining thousands of rockets on Israel — all of them aimed at civilians — Biden kept silent. Finally, on Wednesday, Biden said “my expectation and hope is that this will be closing down sooner than later but Israel has a right to defend itself when you have thousands of rockets flying into your territory.” Saying this ought to have been a no-brainer, but it was obviously an effort on Biden’s part.

Biden instantly caught flak from the Squad. Even though, thanks to the influx of Ethiopian Jews, there are more Blacks in Israel than there are in Gaza, Ayanna Presley, a racist one-trick pony, promptly analogized herself to the downtrodden Arabs:

“As a black woman in America, I am no stranger to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). “We have been criminalized for the very way we show up in the world … Palestinians are being told the same thing as black folks in America: There is no acceptable form of resistance.”

The other Squad members were not far behind. Ilhan Omar called Benjamin Netanyahu “a far-right ethno-nationalist.” (I had no idea she knew such big words.) Rashida Tlaib reiterated the tired old trope that Israel, the only truly pluralist nation in the entire Muslim Middle East, has an “apartheid government.” And AOC said that Israeli self-defense had to yield to the Arabs’ “right to survive.”

(Again, I will no longer use the word Palestinians. It is a made-up word about a nonexistent Muslim nation. You can go here to learn why I say that.)

All of this makes it sound as if a surprisingly brave and independent Joe Biden has taken a stand against the openly far leftists and his party. However, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Biden’s actions show where his heart lies – and it’s not with Israel.

Even as Hamas is raining rockets on Israeli civilians, Biden announced that he plans to send millions of American taxpayer dollars to the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza:

As the conflict intensifies despite U.S. calls for restraint, the administration notified Congress on Thursday that it will provide $10 million to Palestinian groups in the West Bank and Gaza to support exchange and reconciliation projects with Israelis. The recipients of the aid were not named.

The State Department said Friday that the money is part of more than $100 million that the administration allocated to the Palestinians earlier this year, reversing a near total cutoff in support under former President Donald Trump.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/is_the_biden_administration_running_an_antiisrael_con.html

On Saturday, Israel announced that it had evidence that Hamas military intelligence assets were operating out of a building with civilian media offices – in essence, using the media as a shield. Because Hamas turned the building into a military site, it became a legitimate target under international law. So, AP and Al Jazeera lost their propaganda sites. Israel gave detailed information about notifying Biden in advance of the strike. However, on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was no such evidence. Does this represent some kind of creepy and dangerous game-playing from the Biden administration?

You can read here about Israel’s initial targeting of the Hamas building, including Israel’s detailed statement about its justification for destroying that building. In the same post, you can see how the Biden administration’s knee-jerk reaction was to castigate Israel for having destroyed the AP and Al Jazeera headquarters.

Various media outlets, however, reported that Biden had so much evidence in front of him that he “gave the OK” to Israel’s assault on the building:

PRESIDENT Joe Biden “gave the OK” for the huge Israeli blitz that levelled an alleged Hamas building in Gaza after Benjamin Netanyahu shared the “smoking gun” evidence.

The evidence is said to have been handed over by the Israeli President during his telephone conversation with Joe Biden on Saturday.

A source close to Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi is reported to have said: “We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building”.

He added Biden had “found the explanation satisfactory”, although did not provide details of the evidence.

The White House “readout” of a Saturday call between Biden and Netanyahu states that Biden “reaffirmed his strong support for Israel’s right to defend itself against rocket attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza.” It’s not clear whether that call occurred before or after the strike on the Hamas building.

The whole equation changed, though, on Monday, when Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that can be distilled to his asking, Hamas? What Hamas?