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FOREIGN POLICY

Byron York The president appeases Putin

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/byron-yorks-daily-memo-the-president-appeases-putin

On Tuesday came word that President Joe Biden will waive sanctions on a major player in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which U.S. officials have long seen as a Russian threat to U.S. and European security. The pipeline, which is nearly completed, would transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. In the process, it would make both Germany and the rest of Europe — and the NATO alliance — vulnerable to the strategic desires of Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin. Not surprisingly, the pipeline is a top-priority project for Putin.

President Donald Trump was a leading force in supporting sanctions against the companies and individuals involved in the pipeline. But now, Biden plans to ease sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, the company that is running the project, and its top official, Matthias Warnig. And here’s the odd thing: “The State Department will…acknowledge that the corporate entity in charge of the project (Nord Stream 2 AG) and its CEO, (Putin crony and former East German intelligence officer Matthias Warnig) are engaged in sanctionable activities,” writes Axios’ Jonathan Swan, who broke the story. “However, the State Department will waive the applications of those sanctions, citing U.S. national interests.”

What are those national interests? Swan reports that the Biden administration “is not willing to rupture its relationship with Germany” over the pipeline, which the administration insists it is still determined to stop.

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Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress oppose the pipeline and support sanctions related to it. But for Republicans especially, after listening to Democrats accuse President Trump of appeasing Putin, the administration’s decision is particularly galling. And add to that their unhappiness with Biden shutting down the Keystone XL pipeline project in the U.S.

How President Biden Emboldened Hamas, Islamic Jihad by Khaled Abu Toameh

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.”

When it comes to Israel, Biden’s actions speak louder than words Andrea Widburg *****

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.

Is the Biden administration running an anti-Israel con? By Andrea Widburg

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?

Violence in Israel Is the Price of Biden’s Weakness By Mike Pence

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/05/violence-in-israel-is-the-price-of-bidens-weakness/

In the Middle East, he has replaced strength with weakness, moral clarity with confusion, and loyalty with betrayal.

The Trump-Pence administration opened the door to a future of peace in the Middle East founded on our strong and unwavering commitment to the state of Israel. But now Israel is enduring the worst outbreak of violence in at least seven years — a direct result of the weakness shown by the Biden administration from its first day in office.

Many Americans witnessing the recent bloodshed in Israel are perplexed by how quickly violence erupted after years of calm. The answer is that President Biden and congressional Democrats have abandoned unambiguous support for our ally Israel, emboldened our enemies, and turned their back on the policy that yielded historic peace deals in the Middle East.

Under the Trump-Pence administration, we made it crystal clear to the world that America stands with Israel. We withdrew from the dangerous Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama-Biden administration, which put the world’s leading state sponsor of terror on the path to nuclear weapons while sending pallets of cash to the mullahs in Iran. We acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. And President Trump kept the promise made by countless Republican and Democrat politicians by actually following through in moving the American embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of the state of Israel.

Every step of the way, Democrats and self-proclaimed foreign-policy “experts” derided our administration’s approach and issued dire warnings that blood would soon flow in the streets of Israeli cities. As usual, they were wrong.

In fact, last year, our administration brokered the Abraham Accords, a series of historic peace agreements between Israel and Arab-Muslim countries — the most significant breakthrough for peace in decades.These groundbreaking peace accords happened not in spite of America’s support for Israel, but because of it. Other nations knew where America stood with absolute certainty. They knew America would respond forcefully if our citizens or allies were threatened. As a result, they responded rationally by pursuing peace and harmony.

As Iran’s Mullahs Incite Hamas Terrorism, Biden Administration Wants Sanctions Lifted by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17373/iran-hamas-terrorism

The Biden administration is apparently offering even more concessions and sanctions relief to Iran’s leaders, concessions that “go beyond the nuclear-specific sanctions.”….Meanwhile, these leaders from Iran are openly encouraging Hamas to launch more rockets….

In addition, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei…has been inciting terrorism on social media…. [and] labeled the whole nation of Israel a terrorist camp….

Twitter’s policy indicates that it will suspend users “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” But Twitter appears to be giving him full immunity. It is worth noting that Twitter banned the former President Donald J. Trump… “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

“Why is @khameni_ir still the fu*k on Twitter? If this isn’t incitement, idk wtf is!!!” — @JeremyKossen, Twitter, May 12, 2021.

“Why on Earth aren’t you banning @khamenei_ir and all his other accounts?” — @eL3CT10n to CEO Jack Dorsey, Twitter, May 12, 2021.

“The United States engaging in active negotiations with Iran and potentially providing billions of dollars in sanctions relief will no doubt contribute to Iran’s support of Hamas and other terrorist organizations who attack Americans and our allies. We call on you to immediately end negotiations with Iran, and make clear that sanctions relief will not be provided.” — More than 40 US Senators, letter to President Joe Biden, Newsweek, May 12, 2021.

It is mind-boggling that the Biden administration is forging ahead with its plan to revive the nuclear deal and lift sanctions against Iran’s mullahs while one of America’s strongest allies, Israel, is being attacked by the Iran-backed terror group, Hamas….

[T]he Biden administration must immediately halt talks with the Iranian regime. And definitely do not fund it. Any generosity will just be used to enrich Iran’s militia, the IRGC, and target more countries in the Middle East — in addition to the United States as it did on 9/11 and 1983. This time, however, the attacks may well come from Iranian bases in Venezuela or the Southern Hemisphere.

Amidst the Iranian regime’s clear role in inciting terrorism against Israeli civilians, talks to lift sanctions against the regime are advancing in Vienna. The Biden administration is apparently offering even more concessions and sanctions relief to Iran’s leaders, concessions that “go beyond the nuclear-specific sanctions.”

Meanwhile, these leaders from Iran are openly encouraging Hamas to launch more rockets at a longtime US ally in the Middle East, Israel. Additionally, the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, Esmail Ghaani, in a phone call with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, recently applauded Hamas for its attacks.

How to Ensure a Middle East War in Five Easy Steps The new American Middle East policy is an extension of the new American domestic policy. Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/16/how-to-ensure-a-middle-east-war-in-five-easy-steps/

More than 2,500 rockets have landed in Israel over the past week. Some Arab Israeli citizens are terrorizing Jewish Israelis. Apparently, as the rockets fall, these citizens are to be Arab Islamic nationalists first, and Israelis last—even if they wisely prefer to live on the Israeli rather than the Palestinian side of Israel’s hated wall.

The usual Hamas sympathizers are promising death to the Jews on social media (so much for the idea that Twitter and Facebook are “shocked, shocked” by impolite expressions of the Trumpian sort). 

Iran is always Iran—hubristic and chest-thumping that an obsequious United States will ease sanctions, allowing billions of dollars into the country, and thus empowering Iran to revive former levels of funding to Hezbollah and Hamas, to restructure the terrorist weaponry pipeline to Yemen, and to sanctify the Iran-deal trajectory to an Iranian bomb. Tehran just issued a third-rate video of the Republican Guard destroying the U.S. Capitol, apparently to show the world how it plans to humiliate an appeasing Biden State Department.

But why all this violence now? Of course, experts say the pretexts are cancellations of elections in the West Bank. And there is the need for the corrupt Palestinian Authority to find an enemy to scapegoat other than corrupt rival Hamas. Of course, they say, the Jews are—for the 1,000th time—“desecrating” the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and that the Israeli government is in a mess of disunity, without a unified majority voice. Of course, they say, there is the pretext of a court case over former pre-1947 property in Jerusalem—a bitter, but nevertheless still mostly private matter handled by the courts for years without an intifada.  

Yet between 2017 and 2021 there was relatively little violence in Israel and on the West Bank. Whatever our ideologies and politics, we all know the one reason why there is chaos now and not then. And that constant in itself is a primer on the Middle East. 

Trump Provoked Peace 

The Trump Administration assumed that whenever there is perceived distance between the United States and democratic Israel, then unsavory players exploit the void and try things they otherwise would not. Israel’s enemies and even neutrals in the area see such a reset as encouragement to move in, on the assumption (correctly held) that American tensions with Israel always reflect weakness and hesitancy to be exploited.  

Americans Have the Right to Know About Biden’s Upcoming Deal with Iran’s Mullahs by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17350/biden-upcoming-iran-deal

Is the effective US news blackout about the negotiations with Iran meant to keep the allies and American public in the dark to prevent an outrage that may scuttle the administration’s effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal — which Iran by the way never signed?

If the Biden administration, like the Obama administration, suddenly surprises everyone that a deal has been reached, will it then be too late for the public to act? Is a return to the nuclear deal the price Biden agreed to for Obama’s support before the November 3, 2020 election?

The American public has the right to know what sanctions the Biden administration are planning to lift because this regime has been killing Americans and taking hostages for almost four decades.

“Last week, Iran’s chief diplomat allegedly admitted the IRGC calls the shots in Tehran. Now, Iran releases a fake video of the IRGC blowing up our Capitol. The Biden admin’s priority should be ensuring Iran cannot carry out such an attack, not capitulating by removing sanctions.” — US Senator Pat Toomey, Twitter, May 2, 2021.

Since the nuclear talks began in Vienna between the Iranian regime and P5+1, the Biden administration has avoided being transparent about what is going on with the negotiations and what exactly is being offered to the Iranian regime — the one that the US Department of Justice has called the “the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism.

Ironically, it has been easier to get information about the talks from the Russian and Iranian leaders than from the Biden administration. While Iran and Russia, for example, have been saying for weeks that they are progressing towards a deal, the Biden administration, at home and in front of the allies such as Israel, has continued to downplay the possibility of a deal with Iran. Is the effective US news blackout about the negotiations with Iran meant to keep the allies and American public in the dark to prevent an outrage that may scuttle the administration’s effort to revive the 2015 nuclear deal — which Iran by the way never signed? Or is it meant to keep the public and the Congress’s guard down to later surprise them with a deal? If the Biden administration, like the Obama administration, suddenly surprises everyone that a deal has been reached, will it then be too late for the public to act? Is a return to the nuclear deal the price Biden agreed to for Obama’s support before the November 3, 2020 election?

After the Europeans admitted around May 1 that a deal is close to being finalized, the Biden administration finally had no option other than to reveal the truth on May 8 and acknowledge that a deal is in fact on the way.

Biden’s Handlers Get the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict They Wanted Once again, the Dems embolden – and enable – evil.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/bidens-handlers-get-israelipalestinian-conflict-robert-spencer/

On his new Save America website, former President Trump stated the obvious that the elites wish us to overlook: “When I was in office we were known as the Peace Presidency, because Israel’s adversaries knew that the United States stood strongly with Israel and there would be swift retribution if Israel was attacked. Under Biden, the world is getting more violent and more unstable because Biden’s weakness and lack of support for Israel is leading to new attacks on our allies.”

Weakness and lack of support for Israel, and open support for the Palestinian jihad. The Washington Free Beacon reported last March that “the Biden administration privately confirmed to Congress last week that the Palestinian Authority has continued to use international aid money to reward terrorists but said the finding won’t impact its plans to restart funding.”

And it didn’t. Biden’s handlers gave $235 million to the Palestinians in April. So now you can see your taxpayer dollars at work, funding the bloody Palestinian jihad against Israel, thanks to Biden’s handlers. Meanwhile, in an example of a frequent leftist tactic, the complete inversion of reality, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) tweeted: “American taxpayer money is being used to commit human rights violations. Congress must condition the aid we send to Israel, and end it altogether if those conditions are not followed. Statements aren’t working @SecBlinken. Enough is enough.” American taxpayer money is indeed being used to commit human rights violations, but not in the way Tlaib has in mind.

The kind of people that Tlaib and her colleagues in the American left are fronting for are epitomized by Hamas Political Bureau Member and former Minister of the Interior Fathi Hammad. According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Hammad said on Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV Friday: “People of Jerusalem, we want you to cut off the heads of the Jews with knives. With your hand, cut their artery from here. A knife costs five shekels. Buy a knife, sharpen it, put it there, and just cut off [their heads]. It costs just five shekels. With those five shekels, you will humiliate the Jewish state.”

Blinken’s Non-Containment Policy Regarding China by Peter Schweizer

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17348/china-containment-policy

“Our purpose is not to contain China, to hold it back, to keep it down. It is to uphold this rules-based order that China is posing a challenge to. Anyone who poses a challenge to that order, we’re going to stand up and defend it.” — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, 60 Minutes interview, May 2, 2021.

For American diplomacy, this is a significant admission that America no longer wants to lead the world, but instead gracefully back away as the world’s reigning superpower.

The Chinese communists in Beijing, however, are not known for either subtlety or nuance in how they handle their affairs in their own backyard. Where China is concerned, words and statements matter. Weakness displayed is weakness exploited.

To win the Cold War in the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan’s genius was to go further than simple containment. Reagan believed a simple containment policy would always leave you on defense. He compared it to getting possession of the football and punting on first down.

So the leaders of the free world should not only be speaking – and acting – in opposition to China’s human rights abuses and expansionist, aggressive movements internationally. They should be attacking the worst, most vicious exponent of Leninism – the Chinese Communist Party – as the cause of the human rights problems and global instability that we see in the world.

It is by design and for keeps.

In various recent interviews, President Joe Biden and his top diplomat have tried to say they want China to follow “the rules” while it pushes past the United States as the dominant power in the world. That is the only way to see the signals they are sending to the Beijing regime.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Norah O’Donnell of CBS News’ 60 Minutes last week that the goal of the Biden administration was not to “contain” China, but to protect a “rules-based order” in international relations:

“Our purpose is not to contain China, to hold it back, to keep it down. It is to uphold this rules-based order that China is posing a challenge to. Anyone who poses a challenge to that order, we’re going to stand up and defend it.”