In preparing to write a blog post about the Israel-Hamas war, one of the points that was to be mentioned that it the U.S. is no longer Israel’s reliable ally and that it would be in Israel’s best interests to become self-sustaining as far as U.S. military aid.
If any country could pull that off, it’s Israel. Self sufficiency would also take at least some of the metaphorical “ammo” away from the anti-Semites.
Before the post could be written, however, the above notion played out in real time, with the Biden administration’s announcement that it was withholding hardware that Congress has already authorized for Israel as the latter begins to enter Rafah.
As Prof. William A. Jacobson, the founder of the Legal Insurrection blog, explained, Rafah is “Hamas’ last stronghold where it’s remaining leadership and battalions are located, along with the hostages. Hamas has been firing rockets from Rafah, and killed four Israeli soldiers at a border crossing used to ship humanitarian aid.”
By the way, you can simultaneously be American First, and be an Israel supporter, in the sense of a desire to address the many problems here at home before any more U.S. taxpayer cash is sent overseas.
A Two-State Solution
With worries about the November election, the incumbent administration is pandering to the pro-Hamas cohort.
In that general context, Alan Dershowitz has opined that the administration’s actual two-state solution is “winning Michigan and Minnesota.”
Israel is a sovereign country, and no country, including the U.S., should be meddling it its affairs, either domestically or in terms of its war in Gaza.
No one outside the war zone should be Monday-morning quarterbacking about what Israel should or shouldn’t do on the ground to protect itself from a terrorist enemy.
A Blatant Double-Standard
The U.S., among many other nations, hardly has clean hands when it comes to civilian casualties.
Plus, there are territorial disputes tragically leading to casualties, civilian and otherwise, all over the world.
For some reason, the world is obsessed with a tiny multi-cultural democracy in the Middle East.
It’s been reported many times that no army in the world tries to minimize civilian casualties like the IDF does, sustaining casualties to its own soldiers in the process.
Israel’s reputation is also being tarnished because Congress, in the recent funding package, linked funding for the beleaguered Jewish state to the many more billions being wasted in Ukraine debacle.
By the way, have any of America’s foreign-policy experts been correct on anything?
Historically Challenged Protesters
Whether it’s the media or campus protesters, the ignorance of basic Middle East history is astounding. It’s a total inversion of language and projection to accuse the victims of genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and colonization to be perpetrators of those horrible crimes.
It’s been argued that Israel is perhaps the only country in the world where the indigenous people reclaimed their land.
These folks also seem to be totally unaware that Hamas has been in charge of Gaza for nearly 20 years. If people in or outside of Gaza have a beef, it should be with Hamas. And where did all the millions of foreign aid poured into Gaza go?
Gaza also shares a border with Egypt but apparently Hamas has not mounted any large-scale terrorist attacks against Egypt which may mean that Hamas may also be guilty of failing to live up to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Not-So-Peaceful Protests
Insofar as the campus protests are concerned, some have argued that it’s a free speech matter, and criticism of Israel shouldn’t be off the table, and that police shouldn’t be dismantling the protest encampments.
As a threshold matter, as alluded to above, no country is probably more criticized than Israel, especially from those buying into Hamas propaganda at face value.
Give Hamas credit; they are excellent at propaganda, with the help of the useful idiots (which was a Cold War term) in the West.
No one criticizes Israel more than the Israelis themselves, moreover, especially given that the country had five elections through 2022.
No reasonable person disputes that Israel, like any country, has issues.
With that in mind, a full investigation as to the intelligence failures leading to the savage October 7 Hamas attack is needed
When was the last time that any of Israel’s neighbors had an election?
Anti-Semitism Is Rampant
But the campus protests — which calls into question these university admissions policies — have gone beyond First Amendment activity to descended into riots prompting a police response, along with hate speech, and assaults and other forms of racism and religious discrimination against Jewish students.
With anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Israel and anti-Zionism sentiment, violence and vandalism has also committed against Jewish persons (and non-Jews) and Jewish-owned businesses in the broader community.
is there any other ethnic or religious group that is held responsible for the actions of a government thousands of miles away?
News has also emerged that Biden-backing billionaires like George Soros are allegedly paying the protesters, which may explain why those in participating rent-a-mobs, including non-student outsiders, are so pathetically shallow in their knowledge of actual Middle East history but show up anyway.
As the New York Post Editorial Board wrote on May 6, “They’re no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention; these protests are very much part and parcel of today’s total progressive package, which very much includes the prez. It’s no shock that the same rich people who want Biden to win another term also want to see Israel destroyed and Hamas free to continue its rampages against innocent Jews.”
Cashing In on Chaos
But it also shows that Marxists, socialists, communists, anti-capitalists, anarchists, and so on that have descended on the colleges are hardly opposed to making a quick buck.
As an aside, considering the way that the U.S. seems to be abandoning Israel, given the ongoing dispute between CCP-controlled China and Taiwan, although a physical conflict may never occur (and the U.S. should never get directly involved there), would anyone be surprised if the West sells out Taiwan at crunch time?
This post will likely be updated.
