The Patriot Post® · Team Biden Gets Antsy Over Israel's War
Officially, the Biden administration has sided with Israel in its war with Hamas. Unofficially, however, Team Biden has been weak-kneed from the start, unlike in Ukraine, where the administration has remained steadfast in its support for the war-torn country to the tune of more than $100 billion in ammo and aid. But with Israel’s fight against Hamas having now surpassed the 100-day mark, the administration is clearly getting anxious.
Over the weekend, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby suggested that it’s time for Israel to ease up on the intensity of its crusade against Hamas. “We have been talking to them intensely about a transition to low-intensity operations,” he said. “We believe it’s the right time for that transition, and we’re talking about doing that.”
Again, when has the Biden administration ever called on Ukraine to lessen the intensity of its fight against Russia? Indeed, where have there been calls from the administration regarding concerns over civilian casualties due to Ukraine’s war effort?
But there was Kirby, Biden’s mouthpiece, advising Israel to effectively back off its war efforts.
“Now, they have done some precursory steps to try to kind of get to that point,” Kirby allowed. “They were pulling some troops out. They’re relying a little less on air strikes. But we believe that — look, any military campaign, you go through phases. And the next logical phase here, as they have put pressure on Hamas leadership, is to get to lower intensity operations, more targeted, more precise raids, less air strikes. We believe it’s time to make that transition, and we have had that conversation with them.”
The next logical step? Really? So, when the objective is to defeat one’s enemy — an enemy that has sworn to annihilate your very nation and its people, to wipe them off the face of the earth — it would seem that the only logical step is to continue fighting until that murderous foe is utterly defeated. And the sooner the better.
The problem for Biden, as our own Nate Jackson and Douglas Andrews have observed, is that Democrats are deeply divided over the issue of offering support for Israel. So chock-full of Palestinian and Hamas apologists and supporters have the Democrats become that Biden is struggling to both support our closest and most important ally in the region while also attempting to placate the anti-Semitic demands of his party’s sizable radical left wing.
Thus, what results from the White House is effectively a bunch of doublespeak. Even as Kirby calls for Israel to let up on its intensity, he quickly pivots: “We’re not saying, ‘Let your foot up off the gas completely and don’t keep going after Hamas.’ The terrorist organization is still a viable threat. They have every right and responsibility to go after that. It’s just that we believe the time is coming here very, very soon for a transition to this lower-intensity phase.”
Israel, for its part, is led by the non-compromising Benjamin Netanyahu, who reiterated his commitment to eliminate the threat of Hamas once and for all. “No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil, and not anyone else," Netanyahu forcefully stated over the weekend.
While Hamas and its Palestinian supporters disingenuously claim that Israel’s righteous war is, in fact, genocide against the Palestinian people, the truth is that only Iran-funded Hamas is guilty of promoting and engaging in genocide.
What Biden should make clear is his unwavering support for Israel in its fight against these jihadi terrorists. This might dissuade other Arab nations from supporting Hamas. But Biden, because of domestic political concerns with a base that is divided over the war, is instead projecting a waffling weakness.