Biden’s ‘Benign’ Barbs to Israel

Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey / Flickr / CC 2.0

President Joe Biden and his administration have been pursuing the same hostile-to-Israel policies promoted by the Obama-Biden administration.

Let’s not be fooled. Extolling “ironclad friendship” between America are simply meaningless and phony words when Biden is enriching the Iranian terror regime with billions of dollars in funds and sanctions relief; pressing Israel to cede her sovereignty and security to a Palestinian terror state on “Auschwitz lines” that would render Israel indefensible; and sending over $1.5 billion to Hamas-allied UNRWA and to the Palestinian regime thereby freeing up funds for the Palestinian Authority to continue paying Arabs lifetime pensions to murder Jews and Americans.

These policies threaten Israel’s existence and Jewish and American lives.

And that isn’t all. The Biden administration took scores of additional actions that are hostile to Israel and/or Jews.  Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and others wrote about these actions as they occurred.  Here are a few highlights:

• • Biden pressured Israel to surrender 330 square miles of natural-gas-rich maritime territory to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, thereby enriching Hezbollah with billions of dollars of revenue, and diminishing Israeli maritime security and resources.  Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman decried that this deal gave 100% to Lebanon, and 0% to Israel.
  • Biden’s combating antisemitism strategy downgraded the excellent IHRA definition of antisemitism by embracing the dangerous NEXUS and JDA definitions that permit antisemitism masked as hatred for the Jewish state and Zionism.   Biden’s antisemitism strategy also failed to address major sources of antisemitism other than white supremacy; diluted antisemitism’s uniqueness by lumping antisemitism together with “Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny”; and sought to incorporate other hatreds to dilute Holocaust education.
  • Biden reinstituted Obama’s anti-Jewish boycott of joint US-Israeli science and technology research, cooperation, and projects over the artificial 1949 ceasefire lines.  The boycott discriminates against primarily Jewish institutions such as Ariel University.  By contrast, Palestinian Arab institutions over the ceasefire lines are receiving US assistance.  The US Office of Palestinian Affairs just announced a joint doctoral degree program with”Al Quds” University, located in Jerusalem and throughout the “West Bank.”

• • Biden has been using a potential game-changing Saudi-Israeli deal to demand Israeli concessions to the Palestinian Authority terror regime, including that a Palestinian state solution must be kept open.
  • Biden’s State Department sent US taxpayer funds to a partisan, main organizer of the divisive anti-Netanyahu, anti-judicial reform demonstrations that endangered security by closing down major roads and the airport.  Biden and his ambassador to Israel Nides also pressured Israel’s government and publicly spoke against the needed judicial reforms that Israelis voted for, thereby undermining Israeli democracy.
  • Biden repeatedly pressured Israel to allow the US to re-open an illegal consulate for Palestinian Arabs in western Jerusalem, undermining Israeli sovereignty over her capital.  The US State Department

    denied reports that the US had given up this effort and instead stated that the Biden administration is still “committed” to opening an (illegal) “Palestinian” consulate in Jerusalem.  Meanwhile, Biden opened a US Office of Palestinian Affairs (“OPA”) in Jerusalem, which undermines Israel’s sovereignty.  A few days ago, OPA applauded UNRWA giving $3.6 million to terrorist hotbed Jenin.

  • In his joint press conference with Palestinian Authority president/dictator Mahmoud Abbas, Biden called ordinary Israeli checkpoints, which are necessary for security, “indignities” against Palestinians.

• Biden undermined Israel’s security and sovereignty by calling for the Palestinian Authority to share control of the Israel-Jordanian crossings; and by pressuring Israel to allow more access for Israel for Palestinians from Gaza.
• Biden rejoined the Israel-bashing UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), initially as an observer and then “proudly” as a full member.  The Trump administration had quit the UNHRC because the UNHRC persistently attacks human-rights-loving Israel, and fails to act against real human rights violators.
• Biden pressured Israel to legalize massive illegal Arab building in Area C – the area of Judea-Samaria lawfully under full Israeli administrative control.
• Biden repeatedly praised antisemites and Israel-bashers Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.  On May 18, 2021, Biden told Tlaib: “I admire your intellect, I admire your passion, and I admire your concern for so many other people.  And it’s my feelings from my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family are well. You’re a fighter.  And, God, thank you for being a fighter.

   

• On April 3, 2023, Biden said “Congressman [sic] Omar, I want to thank you for being here.  You never stop working to level the playing field for everybody. . . .  And on May 1, 2023, at the White House Eid al-Fitr party, Biden publicly told Jewhating Israel-bashers Omar and Tlaib that they looked beautiful.
• The Biden administration backtracked on US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.  In a CNN interview on February 8, 2021, Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked if the Biden administration would continue to “see the Golan Heights as part of Israel.”  Blinken only endorsed Israel’s presence in the Golan for the time being, due to the Golan’s importance to Israel’s security, and said that the Biden administration would look at this again if the situation in Syria were to change.
• During a webinar with “Americans for Peace Now” (a radical group that supports BDS over the green line), Biden’s former US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides bragged that his pressure stopped Jewish building in E-1, and wished he could stop all Jewish building in “East Jerusalem” (which includes the Jewish quarter) and Judea/Samaria.  Nides also euphemistically called the Palestinian Authority’s “pay to slay” payments to terrorists to murder Jews  “martyr payments.”   Nides further declared: “‘ These martyr payments . . . have caused an enormous amount of problems because it gives the ‘haters’ an excuse not to support the PA based on the argument that it is ‘paying for people who killed Jews.'”   (Nides’ thus stated that the terrorists and the PA are not the problem, but rather the problem is the people who oppose the PA’s “pay to slay” payments.)
• Biden insulted Israel’s prime minister by still not meeting with him at the White House, and by instead meeting opposition party leaders.  During Biden’s recent meeting with Netanyahu at the United Nations on September 20, 2023, Biden again pushed for a Palestinian Arab (terror) state; again pressured Israel to not make what Biden refers to as “unilateral measures” (meaning Jews building homes in the Jewish homeland); and again opposed and interfered with Israel’s needed internal judicial reforms.

In addition, over thirty Biden appointees and nominees to top posts affecting Jews and the Jewish state have alarming antisemitic or hostile-to-Israel backgrounds.  Many were also Obama-Biden administration officials.  ZOA’s “Biden Appointments Watch” webpage illuminates their backgrounds.  A few examples:

• • US Special Envoy to the Palestinians Hady Amr stated that he supports BDS and was “inspired” by the Intifada terror wars against Israel.

• •  White House Office of Legislative Affairs Deputy Director Reema Dodin has supported suicide bombings.
  • National Security Council Senior Director for Intelligence Maher Bitar organized an anti-Israel conference and ran a session on how to demonize Israel.
  • US Commission on Int’l Religious Freedom appointee Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum retweeted her wife’s praise for antisemite Linda Sarsour and said Kaddish for Hamas terrorists killed while trying to murder Jews, causing pro-Israel members of her LGBT synagogue to leave.

• National Security Advisor Avril Haines falsely condemned Israel for terrorism and incitement.
• US Envoy to Iran Robert Malley (lead Iran negotiator; now under investigation for mishandling classified information) is an Iran apologist who opposes sanctions on Iran.
• ExtremistUS AID Middle East assistant administrator nominee (and senior advisor to State Dept. sanctions coordinator) Tamara Cofman Wittes condemned the Abraham Accords as a “Naksa.” (“Naksa” is the Arabic for “setback” or “catastrophe”: Palestinian Arabs use this term to describe Arabs’ failure to annihilate Israel in 1967.)
• And Biden’s nominee for the next US Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, who served as Obama’s chief-of-staff and Treasury Secretary: lied that the Iran deal contained “incredibly robust” inspections and would guarantee that Iran “never” obtained a nuclear bomb, to promote the deal to the Jewish community; was the treasury secretary during Obama’s transfer of $1.7 billion of cash to Iran; and publicly defended the worst-ever anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334.  Res. 2334  labels the Jewish people’s holiest sites including the Western Wall and Temple Mount, Hadassah Hospital, and Jewish Quarter as “occupied Arab land”; and says that the Jewish presence (and homes) in these historic Jewish lands has “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law.”  Res. 2334 also promotes Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

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