America and the World Should Rally Behind Israel

The indiscriminate violence and barbarous attacks we saw in Israel this past weekend should serve as a moment of clarity for the world.  Do not avert your eyes: This was a massacre of innocents.  Over 1,200 Israelis now lie dead, with many more injured and many taken hostage, including at least 27 dead Americans and more held hostage.  The Israelis must be provided everything they need to respond to this crisis in a way that keeps it from ever happening again, which means eradicating Hamas from Gaza.

We should be clear: Any who blame Israel for this medieval bloodshed, or who call for a ceasefire before Israel has secured its people and its borders, should be dismissed out of hand.  Instead, the entire world should rally behind and fully support Israel in its fight to defend itself, both now and in the future.

I have said many times that Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East.  It stands today as the only truly pluralistic, democratic state in the region.  Its citizens are guaranteed freedom of religion under Israeli law, and they are each accorded the same rights regardless of their race or creed.  Israel is the exact opposite of an apartheid state – it is what every American should want to see across the Middle East: a nation with real religious freedom and a citizenry guaranteed equal freedoms under the law.  In the Trump Administration, our unapologetic, full-throated support for the Jewish state helped deter the kind of conflict we are now seeing, and it paved the way for the success of the Abraham Accords.

Unfortunately, instead of fully supporting Israel, the Biden Administration has chosen to appease the Iranian regime.  This past weekend was Iran’s attempt to thwart the success of the Abraham Accords and stop the expansion of those agreements to include Saudi Arabia.

To be clear, Hamas and its handlers in Tehran are responsible for the wicked, barbaric attacks on innocent Israelis.  But this is a crisis entirely of the Biden Administration’s making.  It stopped enforcing sanctions on Iranian oil, which enabled Iran to generate over $40 billion in revenue this year alone – five times more than it generated in the final year of the Trump Administration.  In August, Team Biden announced its plan to execute a $6 billion ransom payment to the Ayatollah’s regime, an absurd gift that gave Iran’s Central Bank plenty of credit and enabled it to funnel even more resources to proxies like Hamas – indeed, early reports indicate that this is when the plan with Hamas was set in motion.  Not that this was entirely necessary, as Biden had already approved sending well over $300 million to the Palestinians in violation of the Taylor Force Act and in spite of internal warnings that the funds would likely end up with Hamas.

Flush with cash and resources, the regime in Tehran did what it has always done when the West is foolish enough to embrace a strategy of appeasement: It spread terror and war through its proxies. And once again, the regime in Tehran used the Palestinian people as a tool.  America and the whole world should recognize that this war has nothing to do with the Palestinian cause.  It has everything to do with Iran’s ambition to dominate the Middle East and destroy Israel.

Every decisive factor that led to the recent atrocities inflicted on the Israeli people was facilitated by the Biden Administration’s failed policies of appeasement and weakness with Iran and around the globe.  We’ve appeased the Taliban, the Russians, the Chinese, illegal immigrants on our southern border, and the Iranians, demonstrating such weakness at every turn that no enemy now respects us.  Weakness and appeasement only beget war.

Immediately, the United States and all nations who possess any measure of moral clarity must deliver everything Israel needs to defend itself, and we must ensure it has our full support in whatever actions it takes to secure itself against future attacks.  The next few weeks are going to be long; as Israel secures itself from the threats festering in Gaza, there will undoubtedly be no shortage of pictures and videos coming out that are tragic. We must not waver in our support for Israel.  We must remember that the responsibility for this tragedy lies solely with Hamas and the Ayatollah’s wicked regime.

Just as importantly, the Biden Administration must recognize that when America refuses to lead and use American power to deter our adversaries, America and the whole world suffer.  Under this Administration’s policy of appeasement, we've seen 13 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan.  We have a ground war in Europe.  We have a southern border that is being overrun by drug cartels.  We have a Chinese Communist Party that is threatening every one of its land-based neighbors and sea-based neighbors.  And now, we have innocent Israelis murdered in cold blood, and the beginnings of a prolonged war in the Middle East.  All of these things are to America’s detriment.  We must stop the failed policy of appeasement and get back to the hard work of deterring our adversaries.