The Top Line
Under extreme duress by the Biden administration, Israel’s Cabinet today approved “in principle” a so-called “ceasefire” in Lebanon. It did so with extreme reluctance and despite the certainty correctly shared by the vast majority of Israelis that the result will not be an end to their war with Hezbollah.
To the contrary, in accordance with Islamic doctrine dating back to Mohammed’s time, the Lebanon-based terrorist group that amounts to Iran’s foreign legion will use what is known in Islamic doctrine as a “hudna” – a fighting pause – to regroup, rearm and renew hostilities at a time of its choosing.
For these reasons, the Working Group on Israel (WGI) calls for President-elect Trump and Congress to repudiate the Biden administration for extorting Israel to act against its vital interests – and ours – and setting the stage for the further bloodshed sure to come.
Biden’s Disastrous Mideast Legacy
The Trump administration focused on strengthening our allies in the Middle East while the Biden administration chose instead to strengthen our enemies in the region – especially Iran.
The eight-front attack on Israel that began on October 7 was a direct result of the Biden administration’s pursuit of a relationship with Iran. Biden inherited from Donald Trump a region in which Israel was strong and increasingly at peace with Arab and other neighbors and Iran and its proxies were in check, if not regime-ending death spirals
The Biden administration instead returned to the Obama administration’s two key regional goals: the integration of Iran as a partner in creating a strategic framework of stability in the Middle East and the creation of a Palestinian state. The events of October 7, however, and the subsequent and ongoing region-wide eight-front war against Israel exposed not only the incompatibility of a two-state solution with Israel’s basic security. It also underscored the extent to which Iran never moderated, let alone abandoned, its goal of bringing “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.”
Thanks substantially to Biden’s policies, Israel now is fighting for her life in this eight-front war that has inflamed the region and turned much of the rest of the world against her.
Even as Iran pursues a nuclear weapons program and its proxies continue to attack Americans (notably, in Iraq and Yemen) and our allies, the Biden administration remains unwilling to internalize the failure of its approach to the region and to stand by America’s key democratic ally as it faces the fallout of this strategic collapse. Indeed, it has instead redoubled its effort to salvage those collapsing paradigms by lashing out at Israel, with the extent of that assault indicative of the magnitude of the administration’s policy collapse.
For example, the U.S. government has: imposed an extensive arms embargo on Israel; sanctioned severely Israeli individuals and even companies; sabotaged efforts to rein in the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice as they criminalize Israel’s leadership and threaten to arrest its top officials; tried to topple Israel’s elected government rather than end Iran’s tyrannical one; and extorted the Jewish State by threatening to withhold vetoes of anti-Israel UN resolutions unless it accedes to dangerous compromises, indecisive tactics, strategic concessions and forced assistance to its enemy (e.g, providing free food, water, fuel and electricity). The result will be to assure that Hezbollah survives to attack Israel again.
We Must Instead Stand with Israel
Biden’s sabotage of Israel’s war effort threatens America’s national security. Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah has brought to justice many of the murderers of American Marines and diplomatic personnel. And the recent revelation that Hamas plotted to attack a US Air Force base in Germany underscores the reality that Israel is fighting the same enemies that are at war with the United States.
Israel’s campaign against Hamas and Hezbollah, moreover, has diverted Iran’s resources from supplying the Houthis in Yemen who have forced the US Navy into the most intense combat since WWII. Ceasefire deals with Hamas and Hezbollah free up Iran to press the Houthi attack against the US Navy and to deny passage to American and allied vessels in the Red Sea.
In short, the administration’s undermining of the campaign against Iran not only harms Israel, but America. President Trump needs to condemn such malfeasance, now.
Joe Biden’s legacy will not be that of a peacemaker, let alone one like his predecessor, who bequeathed to his successor a stable region. With his hudna, Biden will be seen neither as the defender of our strongest regional ally, Israel, nor as an avenger of the honor of all the American forces murdered by Iran and its proxies. If he persists in such serial betrayals, the outgoing President will forever be known for: selling out and deliberately imperiling the Jewish State; allowing Iran – the nation that killed more Americans than any other since Vietnam – to threaten all our regional allies; and saving its proxies from destruction.
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The Working Group on Israel is a new, informal coalition of American national security practitioners, subject matter experts, religious leaders, human rights activists and other patriots determined to examine, analyze, where appropriate critique and endeavor promptly to improve U.S. Mideast policy. The object is to maximize the economic, physical and national security of the American people and to secure the help of Israel and other allies to that end. The views expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of all WGI members.