President Joe Biden continues to push Israel to end its Rafah offensive meant to cut off Iran and Egypt’s resupply of Hamas. Biden’s embrace of Hamas is a key component to his two-state solution, not peace between Israel and the Palestinians but rather electoral victory in Michigan and Minnesota this November.
This is a crisis created by Democrats’ own cynicism. Many of Biden’s top donors are those who funded and fanned the flames of the genocide slander against Israel. Put aside the United Nations’ tacit acknowledgment that it overestimated Gaza casualties for women and children. If Hamas figures represent a genocide, then U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is equally guilty of genocide since more Americans die annually in automobile accidents than Palestinians have in Gaza since Oct. 7.
Still, White House staff, diplomats, and congressional staff may be well intentioned when they demand a ceasefire, even though naivete and ignorance shape their opinion. Biden and national security adviser Jake Sullivan may believe there is no harm in placating their progressive base at Israel’s expense. After all, can ending war ever be bad?
Here, the answer is, unfortunately, yes.
For decades, the failure to defeat terrorism and advance the Israel-Palestinian peace process has had less to do with the grievances many diplomats or politicians cite, such as disputes over the right of return, and more to do with a willingness to shield Palestinian leaders from the consequences of their actions.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) may excoriate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demand that Israel hold new elections, but he remains silent on the fact that Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is in the 20th year of his elected four-year term. Abbas has funded pensions for terrorism and regularly incited violence against Israel.
Hamas, meanwhile, has wielded dictatorial control over the Gaza Strip since its 2007 coup. It diverted aid and regularly started wars because it understood that Europe, the United States, and the U.N. would shield it from the consequences of its actions. Progressives may believe themselves enlightened, but in reality, they treat the Palestinians with racist disdain by refusing to respect their agency or allow them to feel the consequences of their decisions.
The key to peace is consequence. Only when Palestinians feel the full weight of their decisions will they accept Israel’s existence. Anwar Sadat, the late president of Egypt, won a Nobel Prize for the Camp David Accords peace treaty with Israel. He deserved it. Political activists masquerading as academics and their students protesting on American university campuses misunderstand Sadat’s history, though. He chose peace only after trying to defeat Israel by war. Israel’s total victory then enabled peace just years later.
By throwing a life raft to Hamas, Biden risks not only perpetuating the reign of terror that the Iranian and Turkish proxy exerts on millions of Palestinians but encourages the wider war Biden and Sullivan profess to oppose.
If war is to spread in the region, it will likely next flare between Israel and Hezbollah. That Iranian proxy masses more than 100,000 rockets along Israel’s northern border. While the international media focus on Gaza, they ignore that Hezbollah harassment and rocket fire have forced the evacuation of tens of thousands in northern Israel within range of Hezbollah sniper and artillery fire. The danger of an Israel-Hezbollah war, meanwhile, is that it brings a sustained Israel-Iran conflict one step closer.
As Iranian and Hezbollah leaders view Biden’s actions, though, they draw the lesson that they can strike at Israel and hide behind Biden’s political pusillanimity, especially if Hezbollah’s tendency, like Hamas, to hide among the civilian population leads to collateral damage and casualties.
Biden’s reputation has never been for moral courage. His notion of sophisticated diplomacy is to abide by European groupthink, even if Europe’s notion of peace comes at the price of dead Jews. It is time for the White House to recognize that a ceasefire with Hamas is not cost-free. It would not only allow Hamas to regroup and claim victory, but it would also guarantee war.
