As a gentile who married into and deeply respects Jewish culture, I am openly critical of prevalent unfairly critical accusations of Republicans in general — and Donald Trump in particular — tending to be “antisemitic.”
Upon hearing just such a comment from a good friend, a retired medical doctor, referencing as evidence that Trump had hosted a Mar-a-Lago dinner with Kanye West who had brought along Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes as the popular rapper’s guest, I responded with contrary facts.
Recall that it was former President Trump who placed tough sanctions on Iran, moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as the capital city, and organized the Arab-Israel peacemaking Abraham Accords largely negotiated by his Jewish son-in-law and father of his beloved Kushner family grandchildren Arabella, Joseph, Frederick and Theodore.
It is Republicans, not Democrats, who now support Israel in their national life-or-death defense against Palestinian Hamas that staged unthinkably inhumane October 7 atrocities which brutally killed an estimated 1,200 of their citizens.
Now, as our crucial Middle East Israeli allies continue to fight for national survival, the Biden administration is operating in a full betrayal mode in withholding arms shipments even as Hamas holds Americans among kidnapped hostages, and has reportedly also made U.S. sharing of intelligence information about terrorist tunnel locations conditional to ending military operations in Gaza’s Rafah region.
Rafah hosts Hamas’ leaders, four terrorist battalions, hostages and a border crossing with Egypt, from which it controls incoming aid and smuggles in military supplies.
According to Wall Street Journal editors the current White House is “also pocket-vetoing crucial weapons such as GPS guidance kits for bombs, known as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, which reduce civilian casualties in urban warfare.”
This action to withhold weapons from our closest Middle East ally violates clear terms of commitment made by GOP President George W. Bush to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon 20 years ago stating that “Israel will retain its right to defend itself against terrorism, including to take actions against terrorist organizations.”
The letter further pledged that “The United States will lead efforts, working together with Jordan, Egypt, and others in the international community, to build the capability and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism, dismantle terrorist organizations, and prevent the areas from which Israel has withdrawn from posing a threat that would have to be addressed by any other means.”
A GOP-dominated House and a split Senate ratified the Bush commitment with a strong majority of both sides agreeing that “Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism, including to take actions against terrorist organizations that threaten Israel’s citizens.”
President Obama quickly erased that commitment after taking office in 2009, with WikiLeaks documents revealing instructions to his administration officials to assert the document wasn’t binding.
Obama later withheld Hellfire missiles from Israel during its military operations against Hamas in summer of 2014.
It is President Joe Biden who endorsed a speech from Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling for domestically elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign in the middle of the country’s desperate fight for survival.
Netanyahu defiantly responded to recent U.S. snubs and rebuffs, stating: "In the terrible Holocaust, there were great world leaders who stood by idly; therefore, the first lesson of the Holocaust is: If we do not defend ourselves, nobody will defend us. And if we need to stand alone, we will stand alone."
Meanwhile, as Biden handlers attempt to appease both sides in giving lip service to supporting Israel without offending Michigan’s large pro-Palestine Arab American and Muslim American populations that turned out big for him in helping him solidify his 2020 win against Trump, riotous antisemitism rages unchecked on formerly prestigious campuses throughout the country chanting “Death to America,” and calling for the total destruction of Israel “from the river to the sea.”
As noted by Benjamin Ginsberg, a political science professor at John Hopkins University, “This new anti-Zionism no longer even pretends to distinguish itself from anti-Semitism,” whereby “In polite American society, vehement criticism of Israel is often little more than a veiled form of anti-Semitism.”
Ginsberg points out that “Even the most partisan Democrats in the Jewish community must have noticed by now that nearly all voices raised in defense of Hamas” are typically from within members of that same party.
Ten of the 11 senators who signed a January resolution sponsored by Socialist Bernie Sanders questioning Israel’s human rights record in the Hamas-initiated war were Democrats.
There should be little surprise then that a Republican majority led House bill passed last Thursday seeks to prevent Biden from withholding, halting, reversing or canceling weapons transfers that have been approved by Congress from the United States to Israel, and requires any that have been withheld to be delivered to Israel within 15 days of the bill’s enactment.
Passed with all but three Republicans voting in favor along with 16 Democrats, the proposed legislation would cut off funds from several key executive-branch entities, including the State Department, the Defense Department and the National Security Council until any withheld weapons are sent to Israel.
Although the bill is unlikely to be taken up in the Democratic-led Senate and the White House has pledged to veto it if passed, it’s nevertheless time for Jews everywhere to finally discover who are and aren’t their real friends.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.