By conditioning American support on Israel’s limiting its military posture and attempting to steamroll Israel into a premature permanent cease-fire in Gaza, the Biden administration is ensuring the survival of the Palestinian terror group Hamas and giving its commander Yahya Sinwar every reason to prolong hostage talks and continue the war.
On Oct. 8, 2023 the day after the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, while Israel was still collecting its dead and had not yet entered Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a former Obama adviser, supported Turkey’s advocacy for an immediate cease-fire.
Following considerable blowback, that social media post vanished, but American pressure for prematurely ending the war continued.
Israel’s position is that there will be no permanent cease-fire in Gaza until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities are destroyed, all the hostages are freed and Gaza is no longer a threat to the sovereign Jewish state.
Hamas’s goal in attacking Israel, as stated in its 1988 Charter, is the same as Iran’s, its terror master — the elimination of Israel.
After the Palestinians in northern Gaza were defeated, Biden pressured Israel to
use less firepower in southern Gaza. Worried about American support, Israel complied.
Rather than use the billions in American aid as leverage to force Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to permit Gazan civilians to shelter in the empty Sinai, Biden instead admonished Israel not to "displace" civilians into Egypt.
This forced Israel to relocate a million enemy civilians from Rafah, Hamas’s last stronghold, into humanitarian tent housing outside the war zone.
However, when Jerusalem planned a two-division military sweep through Rafah to quickly vanquish Hamas, Washington made good on its threat to cut off vital military supplies, including bombs to destroy subterranean tunnels sheltering terrorists.
Israel was compelled to use fewer troops, decelerating its campaign to eliminate Hamas and exacting a higher cost in Israeli and civilian lives, according to West Point Urban Warfare expert John Spencer.
With battalions of Hamas terrorists still entrenched in Rafah and rockets from Gaza still landing in civilian areas in Israel, Biden declared that Hamas poses no risk to Israel and is demanding that Israel accept a U.S.-brokered "defeat," a Hamas-designed cease-fire where the terror group would end up ruling Gaza, reap billions in U.S. aid and receive dozens of terrorist prisoners for every hostage recovered, alive or dead.
A senior White House official admitted that the Biden proposal is "nearly identical to Hamas’s own proposals of only a few weeks ago."
Implementing the Biden-Hamas cease-fire plan would be a victory for jihad and Hamas, signaling to the Muslim world that committing a one-day Holocaust will result in a U.S.-backed strategic victory over the Jews and continue the countdown towards the ultimate destruction of Israel.
Blinken said Israel is in danger of becoming indistinguishable from Hamas, amplifying propaganda that Israel is indiscriminately killing Gazan civilians.
John Spencer countered, "Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history — above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
After Iran’s massive, unprovoked and unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel in April, Biden threatened to hobble Israel’s air defense system, forcing Israel to limit its response, given its extensive military capabilities.
Iran incurred no damage whatsoever in retribution for its behavior.
Jerusalem’s strategic independence was compromised.
When Israel obeys an American president eager for any accommodation with Iran, it’s of no value to regional neighbors who fear the Islamic state.
Conventional wisdom is that the administration’s behavior towards Israel is a response to Biden’s fear of losing Michigan’s Arab American votes.
However, there is another, far more sinister reason:
The Obama/Biden foreign policy team believes America has a binary choice: war with Iran or a realignment of power in the region.
Obama replaced Egypt’s Mubarak with a Muslim Brotherhood government, distanced America from Israel and orchestrated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the purpose of which was to legalize Tehran’s nuclear weapons program and realign Iran as America’s new strategic partner.
Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan, a former member of Obama’s Iran negotiating team, has claimed that there are few vital American interests in the Mideast sufficient to warrant risking war with Iran.
Robert Malley, Biden’s and Obama’s former Iran deal negotiator, insisted, "The United States [is] just one . . . Israeli operation against a Shiite militia away from . . . entanglement."
The Biden/Obama foreign policy clique believes that the leaders in Tehran are "strategic," rational people who "respond to costs . . . benefits" and "incentives" and desire to “get right with the world."
Iran is backing Hamas to collapse the traditional U.S.-led regional security order, an architecture based on the oil-rich Gulf Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, along with Israel and Egypt, and replace it with a realignment controlled by Iran as hegemon — the same goal that has been pursued by both the Obama and Biden administrations.
An Israeli victory would deal a crushing blow to the Obama-Biden realignment project, empowering Israel in the eyes of its Arab neighbors.
So, for Team Biden, Hamas’s survival is necessary. A necessary evil.
Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. Ziva writes and lectures about U.S.-Israel relations, U.S. foreign policy, Israel, Zionism, Antisemitism and BDS on college campuses. Her articles have appeared in such publications as The Hill, New York Daily News, New York Observer, The Washington Times, American Spectator, American Thinker and Jerusalem Post. Read Ziva Dahl's Reports — More Here.