AP
Israelis are fighting for their lives on several fronts, so naturally President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris decide it’s a good time to tie their hands and publicly threaten them.
Whose side are they on?
Sadly, it doesn’t seem to be Israel’s.
Nor is it America’s when they insist Israel go easy on terrorists who aim to destroy America after they destroy Israel.
Even to call the White House approach a policy is overly generous.
It’s more of a gut reaction born of weakness that sees any expression of American or Israeli power as dangerous.
Thus their instinct is always to call for a peaceful status quo, even when it is temporary and rewards the enemy.
Afghanistan offers an example of the disastrous consequences of cutting and running.
The defeatist pattern over Israel’s war began early this year as a way to appease Muslim-American voters and antisemitic college students who wanted to feed Israel to the wolves and were angry Democrats didn’t comply.
Election-year strategy
As the nominee, a nervous Biden reacted by turning the screws on Israel, and later had Secretary of State Tony Blinken, who has zero military experience, dictate which targets in Gaza Israel could strike.
Now, as the election draws close and Harris is the nervous nominee, the White House is tightening the screws again.
This time, it’s taking a multifront approach, with Washington simultaneously demanding our ally show restraint in Lebanon and Iran, and allow increased amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
In other words, Israel should raise the white flag until the American election is over.
If it doesn’t, the US threatens to join France and others in imposing an arms embargo on the beleaguered Jewish state.
The urge to protect Israel’s enemies is doubly bizarre when they also happen to be America’s enemies.
Yet that is the impact of the positions America is taking and the demands it’s making.
Notice that Biden and Harris are not making a single demand of any other party, and no one else faces ultimatums.
Israel alone is being held responsible for the care and feeding of Gaza’s civilians even though Hamas uses them as human shields.
Why aren’t Jordan and Egypt pushed to help care for their fellow Arabs?
And in what previous war was the country that had been attacked required to risk the lives of its military to care for the enemy’s civilians?
Hamas could end the war in Gaza immediately.
Yet there are no White House demands for the terror group’s leaders to come out of their tunnels, surrender and release all the hostages, including the Americans still being held.
Similarly, there is no demand that Hezbollah stop firing into Israel.
Instead, Lebanon’s prime minister said he has “received American guarantees” that Israeli strikes in Beirut, Hezbollah’s stronghold, will be reduced, according to Al Jazeera.
Neither the Arab outlet nor Israeli media say who made the guarantee, but suspicion falls on Blinken, the errand boy who has led the charge against Israel all along.
Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin even wrote a Sunday letter threatening to withhold arms shipments if Israel doesn’t increase the humanitarian aid to Gaza within 30 days.
Dictating aid to Gaza
The micromanaging jumps off the page, with the letter insisting that Israel allow at least 350 aid trucks a day to enter Gaza through four crossings and open a fifth.
It also says Israel must implement “humanitarian pauses” throughout Gaza as necessary to enable vaccinations and aid distribution for at least four months.
Harris echoed the letter from the campaign trail, writing on X that “Civilians must be protected and must have access to food, water, and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected.”
She said that while planning to spend several days in Michigan, a battleground state which is home to an estimated 200,000 registered Muslim-American voters.
Most reflexively vote Democrat, but anger over the war has led many to say they will stay home or vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein, who is Jewish and yet a harsh critic of Israel.