One would be hard-pressed to find anyone who could argue that the current state of the Middle East is better than it was when Joe Biden first took office. By almost any objective measure, the region has gone downhill under Biden’s watch.

Of course, that reality should come as little surprise since the Biden administration has made woke ideology the guiding principle behind nearly all of its policy decisions. The latest evidence of this is a memo signed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning against using gendered language such as “brave men and women” or using terms such as “manpower,” “ladies and gentlemen,” “you guys,” or “mother/father.” These terms “can be problematic” because one could be “misgendering” someone.

That’s right: The Middle East is on fire, but Blinken has time to worry about the pronouns his employees use to communicate with each other. When did the State Department become a kindergarten? Does Blinken really believe that using woke “transgender” language will foster greater respect from our friends and, more importantly, strike fear into the hearts of our enemies?

Maybe this is why the foreign policy efforts of Biden, Blinken, & Co. are repeatedly blowing up in their faces. Maybe this is why not only do our enemies not respect us, but neither do our allies. Why should Israel, for example, respect us?

Biden has made it clear that domestic concerns for the increasingly racist and extreme leftist elements of his own party matter more than maintaining a firm commitment to our closest Middle East ally. And he has never been willing to stand fully behind Israel in its effort to stamp out Hamas. Instead, Biden has pushed back on every Israeli effort to that end.

Now, as Israel is poised to make an offensive push into the Gazan city of Rafah to root out more Hamas jihadis, the Biden administration is acquiescing to the anti-Israel contingent within his own party and the United Nations as he is looking for a way to push Israel into a ceasefire.

In the past, when a U.S. president put such pressure on an ally, that ally would have quickly responded. Not this time. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brushed off the White House’s objections as little other than insignificant political posturing from another country.

As The Wall Street Journal observes, “The growing clash between the two governments over Rafah underscores the Biden administration’s waning leverage over Netanyahu as his military continues to hammer Gaza, even as pressure grows inside the U.S. government to rein in Israel.”

Got that? The Biden administration’s goal is to “rein in” Israel — as if America’s ally has gone rogue. In truth, for the Biden administration, it’s all about politics back home. Team Biden worries that if Israel is allowed to continue and eventually crushes Hamas, it will hurt Biden’s reelection chances, specifically in Michigan, with its significant Arab-American population.

What would be good for both Israel and the truly innocent Palestinian people is the elimination of Hamas and its fellow jihadist groups from Gaza. Peace would then be a real possibility. Unfortunately, the Biden administration doesn’t seem interested. After all, there’s an election to win.