As Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) arrives, the White House releases a statement from President Joe Biden mourning the “six million Jews killed by the Nazis during one of the darkest times in human history.” , pledged once again to “heed the lessons of the Holocaust.” Shoah and recognized the responsibility of “never again.” ”
In Israel, after the October 7 Hamas pogrom, its mantra became “never again now.”
The first lesson of the Shoah is that Israel, as an independent and democratic nation, will protect the Jewish people in the Land of Israel. Allies are essential and friends are welcome, but Jews will no longer be at the mercy of a government that is friendly one day and not the next. Israel has the right and obligation to make decisions about its safety and security.
The second lesson is that America’s choices to empower Israel’s enemies and limit Israel’s flexibility and defense capabilities ignore the first lesson and create a rift in the relationship.
That’s exactly what happened under President Biden’s administration.
Iran is a fundamental security issue for Israel. Of course, the Iranian military poses a direct threat, but Israel also faces the indirect problem of Iranian proxies surrounding Israel with arms, money, and political support. The administration made it clear early on that its view of the U.S.-Iranian relationship was based solely on rhetorical considerations over Israel’s security concerns. This was coupled with calls to replace the Abraham Accords with a “two-state solution” that would lead to an independent Palestinian state.
In February 2021, less than a month after President Biden took office, the administration made three announcements. Restore funding to the Palestinian Authority (PA). It would force South Korea to release at least $1 billion in frozen assets to Iran as a step toward returning to some form of the 2015 nuclear deal. And it would lift the terrorist designation of Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Saudi Arabia and Israel protested the latter two moves.
The regime’s “I know better than you what you need” attitude demeans Israel. And that attitude, combined with an absolute determination to engage and negotiate (or simply appease) countries prone to armed conflict, created a concomitant determination to carry out that will.
Despite heavy-handed insistence on a “maritime border agreement” with Lebanon, relations continued smoothly for a while.
Kevin Dietch/Getty Images
In the summer of 2023, civil protests erupted in Israel over the issue of judicial reform in Israel. Even if there is a domestic problem, that is a problem. However, the Biden administration objected to this and once again undermined Israel’s democracy and independence. At the same time, the White House boasted that it had donated more than $315 million to the Palestinians in 2023, and nearly $1 billion since taking office, ignoring Israeli concerns.
Then the October 7 Hamas pogrom occurred, and the terms of the relationship changed.
Israel’s retaliation had three goals. One is the destruction of Hamas as a military and governing body. Security of Israel’s borders and people. and the release of hostages. The Israeli government believed that these goals could be achieved through armed conflict. But the Biden administration stuck to two different principles: the negotiated release of hostages and the protection of Palestinian civilians.
President Biden then called Israel’s campaign “overreach” and said the suffering of civilians must stop. He signed an executive order imposing sanctions on four West Bank settlers whom his administration says have committed violence against Palestinians, with sanctions potentially extending to Israeli government and military personnel. There was an implicit threat that it was sexual. Similarly, the administration launched an investigation into an Israeli defense company, accusing it of receiving subsidies that the United States considers illegal from the Israeli government because it is located in a government development zone. The implicit threat here is that a large portion of the U.S.-Israel defense trade could be targeted.
I just got slapped in the face one after another. Beyond October 7, Biden extended oil sanctions exemptions for Iran, and in November he refused to veto the expiration of a UN embargo on Iran’s production and sale of ballistic missiles. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced that the United States will change its policy toward Israel if the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is not “adequately addressed” in order to stop Israel’s invasion of Rafah. Secretary Blinken also promoted the PA as the future ruling party in Gaza, even though the PA announced it would pay bounties to more than 650 Hamas terrorists from Gaza.
Finally, the US called for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip without condemning Hamas’ war, and refused to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for Israeli hostages to be released only after a ceasefire is established. .
Israel’s decisions and policies on issues of vital importance to the security of its people have been repeatedly attacked by the Biden administration’s determination to get its way.
President Biden has made excellent statements regarding Israel’s security requirements since October 7, and Israel’s defense coordination against an Iranian attack has been excellent. But his comments undermining Israeli decision-making make a mockery of Yom Hashoah “mourning.”
Shoshana Brien is senior director of the Center for Jewish Policy. inFOCUS Quarterly.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
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