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In the days following last fall’s terrorist attack against Israel by Hamas – a militant Palestinian group based in the Gaza Strip – American president Joe Biden was unflinching in his support for the Jewish State.
“There are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world,” Biden said in the immediate aftermath of the attack. “This was an act of sheer evil.”
Biden was not wrong. Hamas’ multi-pronged terrorist offensive murdered more than 800 civilians (including women and children), killed 660 Israeli soldiers and left more than 10,000 people wounded. Another 250 Israelis were captured and taken prisoner. Numbers notwithstanding, the atrocities committed during this incursion were unspeakable.
“They fired thousands of rockets into Israel’s civilian areas,” our Prioleau Alexander noted in recapping the historical context of this conflict. “They mowed down 250 young people at a music festival. They machine-gunned civilians in the streets. They kidnapped an estimated 150 people, most elderly civilians, women, and children. One kidnapped woman was filmed being paraded in the back of a pick-up, half-naked, with blood streaming down between her legs.”
Again, unspeakable …
Referring to the assault as an extension of “a millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people,” Biden vowed to back Israel to the hilt.
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“In this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel,” Biden said. “We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack.”
Biden’s bureaucrats followed suit.
“I come with a clear message – we have Israel’s back,” secretary of state Antony Blinken said on October 11, the day he made the first of his seven visits to Israel in the aftermath of the attack.
“In the days ahead, we will continue to stand with our Israeli partners,” Blinken added. “I will be working to ensure they are equipped to defend themselves and making sure any hostile parties know they must not seek to take advantage of the situation.”
These promises were accompanied by the arrival of American warships and war planes in the Middle East – as well as a detachment of American troops. As the conflict has expanded, America has been drawn even deeper into it (see here and here).
Yes while Biden was rattling his saber and ramping up his rhetoric, the gravitational influence of progressive politics was already beginning to be felt. Democrats, as it turns out, are not particularly keen on backing Israel to the hilt – especially when it appears as though the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) are exacting disproportionate revenge against Palestinians.
(Click to View)
And so less than two weeks after Hamas’ attack – as Israel was ramping up a wave of retaliatory bombings – Biden had already begun to walk back his strident rhetoric.
“You can’t look at what has happened here … and not scream out for justice,” Biden said during a visit to Tel Aviv. “But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it. After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
Undeterred, Israel proceeded to launch a ground invasion of northern Gaza – and is now preparing another invasion of Rafah, a city in southern Gaza which is packed with refugees from the conflict. At last count, more than 31,100 Palestinians had been killed in the Israeli counteroffensive – with another 72,760 wounded and nearly 8,000 missing.
With global sentiment – and his Democratic base – now tilting decisively toward Palestine, Biden is not only refusing to support the Rafah offensive, he is actively positioning himself against Israel.
Following Biden’s State of the Union speech last week, a hot mic captured him telling a U.S. senator of his plans to have “a come-to-Jesus meeting” with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Biden followed up that remark by telling MSNBC on Sunday that an Israeli invasion of Rafah would be a “red line” for his administration.
“There’s red lines that if he crosses them — you cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead as a consequence of going after (Hamas),” Biden said.
Biden – who failed to attach any concrete consequences to his warning – also accused Netanyahu of “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.” And his vice president, Kamala Harris, sought to drive the wedge between Netanyahu and his people even deeper, saying “it’s important for us to distinguish or at least not conflate the Israeli government with the Israeli people.”
Netanyahu was having none of it – making clear Israel would proceed with its offensive on Rafah with or without American support.
“We’ll go there,” Netanyahu told Politico. “You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn’t happen again. Never happens again.”
In a subsequent interview with Fox News, Netanyahu added Israel was “not getting off the gas” in its war against Hamas.
(Click to View)
If all of this sounds eerily familiar, it should. It happened a decade ago on this very same ground – over the same issues.
“Never second guess me again,” Netanyahu barked at then-U.S. secretary of state John Kerry after the latter attempted to negotiate a cease-fire during a 2014 Israeli offensive in Gaza.
Pretty bold talk for a leader relying on Kerry’s country (then and now) to bankroll his nation’s military operations.
For those of you keeping score at home, American taxpayers having supplied Israel with more than $158 billion of military aid since its founding in 1948. During the administration of former president Barack Obama, America agreed to provide $43 billion in military and missile defense funding beginning in October 2019 and continuing through September 2028.
Biden has sought an additional $10 billion in emergency appropriations for Israel following the Hamas attacks.
My media outlet has consistently opposed such expenditures – not out of any particular affinity for Palestine (or disdain for Israel) but based on the fundamental belief that our taxpayers cannot afford to subsidize the feeding, clothing or defense of other nations.
(Click to View)
“I have never (and will never) dispute Israel’s right to defend itself – or even wage aggressive war against its enemies, if it believes such campaigns are necessary,” I noted upon the occasion of the 2016 arms deal. “I’m just asking them to pay for it themselves.”
Netanyahu should have no problem with that policy …
Nearly three decades ago, he addressed a joint session of Congress – boldly declaring that the days of the U.S. government propping up his government were drawing to a close.
“I believe that we can now say that Israel has reached childhood’s end, that it has matured enough to begin approaching a state of self-reliance,” Netanyahu said on July 10, 1996.
“We will build an Israel of self-reliance,” he added.
That hasn’t happened …
Bottom line? American taxpayers are paying for both the Israeli weapons bombarding Gaza – and for humanitarian aid for the Palestinians getting bombed by those weapons. Anyone who doesn’t see the sheer idiocy of that predicament – especially in light of the staggering obligations we are facing at home – is frankly unfit to represent American taxpayers.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina and before that he was a bass guitarist and dive bar bouncer. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven (soon to be eight) children.
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4 comments
Poor MAGA water-carriers.
Desperately trying to stick anything on Biden, but he keeps thwarting every new lame attempt from you Trump cultists.
Trump was openly praising Hitler in the Oval Office to his advisors. Trump slept with a copy of Hitker’s speeches on his nightstand. Trump hosts well known anti-semites at his home. Trump has drawn open support from neo-Nazis here at home and anti-Semite autocrat leaders in Hungry.
Will Folks is a full on MAGA Republican , which means Trump is his night and day. So that means you think Hitler was OK and neo-Nazis are just fine too.
Self-awareness. It’s amazing how far a little bit will get you ;-)
I love coming to FitsNews to read a partisan hack’s blog posts that are instantly made irrelevant and ridiculous by the actions of MAGA Republicans.
“Nancy has Trump’s endorsement! It’s all she needs to cruise to victory!” (Nancy immediately makes a total fool of herself on national TV…again)
“Biden hates Israel now! How dare he give aid to innocent, non-combatants!!!” (this is right after Gen. Kelley lets the World know Trump would praise Hitler in The White House, in front of his advisors)
Can’t wait to see which MAGA politicians are gonna make Will look like a idiot hack tomorrow?
We definitely shouldn’t be sending aid to the Palestinians whose predecessors WERE actually pro hitler during WWII. The old motto “
Kill em all, let God sort em out” is very appropriate as there are no innocent Palestinians. They are all Hamas
None of this is going to matter in a couple of years when the federal government goes bankrupt, because we gave away untold trillions since the start of the Marshall plan and the people moved to the left back in the 60s and 70s to dip a toe in the socialist welfare state (now we are up to our waist in it), and we’ve never had the guts as a country to stop the train headed for the cliff. We are now in the inescapable pull of the black hole….we are adding 1 TRILLION DOLLARS to the debt EVERY ONE-HUNDRED DAYS JUST TO SERVICE THE DEBT WE HAVE INCURRED. We should have ceased all foreign aid decades ago, after the USSR fell. We should have adopted a graduated adjusted social security retirement age decades ago. Obama care took over 1/8 of the nations economy to the tune of trillions of subsidies to insurance companies.
We should have made boarder security real twenty years ago, but no. We should have reigned in the Pentagon about 10 years ago, but no, no , no. The list of enormous financial blunders just goes on and on and on. Everyone had their sacred cows and no-one would ever stop the gravy train. So Normie and Norma have just been going about their lives, only caring if the problems left a steaming pile of shit directly on their front door. Otherwise, so long as Amazon keeps delivering, the sports games still play, and the grocery store has food nowhere near enough people cared about this enough to vote out the trash and put in people who would take control of the situation before it went too far. So Gaza and Israel? Russia and Ukraine? It won’t matter what we think about this one way or another in a couple of years, because we won’t have any more skin in the game, because we will be broke.