Israel Refuses Appeasement And Embarrasses Those In The White House

Israel Refuses Appeasement And Embarrasses Those In The White House

BY JONATHAN TOBIN

Who were the parties most damaged by a series of brilliant operations carried out by Israel against its terrorist enemies? 

At the top of the list are the terrorists and their sponsors. By killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif in Gaza and Hezbollah chief of staff Fuad Shukr in Beirut, the Jewish state not only exacted retribution for the rivers of Jewish blood this trio had shed over the years. It also dealt powerful blows to the collective terrorist organizations' ability to operate, and most of all, undermined the power and image of their chief sponsor and instigators: the Islamist regime of Iran.

Their discomfort ought to be a cause for rejoicing among Israel's friends and allies, as well as the governments and peoples of the West, against whom these Islamist killers are also waging war. But it isn't. Or at least that isn't the reaction of the Biden-Harris administration and its leading press cheerleaders. On the contrary, Washington is acting as if it was the chief victim of the slaying of terrorists who were, at least in theory, among those designated by the U.S. government as wanted men.

Their discomfort goes beyond fears initially voiced in the aftermath of the Israeli strikes about an all-out war being ignited between Israel and Iran, and its proxies. To listen to and read the statements coming out of the administration, it's clear that their anguish is about something more fundamental than the understandable uncertainty about what might happen next.

The subtext to all of their comments centers on two clear concerns.

Embarrassing those in the White House

One is that Israel's actions are interfering with Washington's desire to end the current conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon as soon as possible and on terms that will not unduly discomfort Iran. When asked to comment on the killings of these terrorists, all President Joe Biden could muster in response was to say, in a rare live comment, that "it has not helped" his push for a ceasefire in Gaza that would save Hamas.

The other is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is embarrassing the Americans.

His willingness to move decisively in this manner is not merely shining a light on the administration's weakness when dealing on the international stage. It's also having the effect of highlighting the fact that the United States is currently led by a person whose physical and mental fitness is very much in question, causing both friends and foes to wonder who, if anyone, is truly in charge in Washington right now?

This is causing much consternation among the foreign-policy establishment with its leading mouthpieces, like New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, lamenting that Netanyahu isn't prioritizing the administration's interests. 

But even in his latest broadside against Netanyahu, Friedman acknowledged that the United States is being forced to choose what to do about an Iran that has, thanks to the appeasement policies of Biden and former President Barack Obama, not only become a threshold nuclear power. It's also now an "imperial power" in the Middle East that is dominating the region and forcing conflicts with Israel that most Arabs want no part of.

An Israeli policy that aims at decisively defeating Hamas in Gaza, forcing Hezbollah to stop firing on northern Israel, and, above all, making it clear to Iran that the price of their war to eliminate the Jewish state is one they cannot pay would seem to completely align with American interests. But not with those of Biden and Harris.

What they want from Netanyahu is peace and quiet. And an end to the war on Hamas on virtually any terms--and the ones that Harris sketched out last week that call for a complete Israeli retreat from Gaza would essentially hand a victory to the group that committed the mass murder of 1,200 people on Oct. 7--would largely stifle the complaints of the left-wing of the Democratic Party about their being insufficiently hostile to Israel. That, as well as the dubious claim that this would be a triumph for American diplomacy, would help her to defeat former President Donald Trump in November.

More...