President Joe Biden has proven himself to be quite inept at many things. Handling a pandemic, upholding law and order, implementing sound economic policy, speaking in public, and riding a bicycle are just a few areas in which the current occupant of the White House has struggled if not outright failed. One area Biden has proven successful in, unfortunately for the United States and its allies, is jettisoning our key partners. Whether the result of trademark ineptitude or willful hostility, the outcome is no less damaging to America’s image on the world stage or the nations that depend upon a strong America to deter foes of liberty.
In the immediate aftermath of Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorists’ October 7 invasion of Israel and massacre, President Biden managed to say the right things a few times. His commitment to Israel's security was “ironclad,” Biden insisted. But his wavering on Israel got worse as a result of political pressure from a small group of leftist Democrats personified by Squad Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
There are plentiful examples of Biden's inexplicable actions toward Israel, but here are ten days on which the president and his cabinet demonstrated their uncanny ability to lose an ally.
At the behest of people in crowds where some chanted “Death to America” on the streets of Dearborn, Biden started demanding that Israel agree to a ceasefire on April 4, despite it being Hamas that rejected multiple offers for a cessation of fighting from Israel.
Earlier that week, on April 2, Biden slammed an Israeli strike that killed World Central Kitchen personnel distributing food in Gaza — the result of a mistake in targeting — and demanded changes and accountability for Israel despite Biden's failure to take any responsibility for his botched 2021 drone strike in Kabul that killed ten innocent Afghans, including seven children.
Biden repeatedly warned Israel that if it didn’t do more to prevent civilian casualties — even as Israel prosecuted the war started by Hamas more carefully than the U.S. has on recent battlefields — U.S. policy toward Israel could change. On April 5, Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed in a speech that Israel risked becoming "indistinguishable" from barbaric Hamas terrorists.
Biden's comments undermining Israel started even earlier, including February 8 criticism of the IDF's actions in Gaza as "over the top," as if there's a level of retribution fitting what Hamas did to innocent Jews and Israelis on October 7.
On April 13, after Iran launched an unprecedented direct assault on Israel with hundreds of kamikaze drones and missiles, Biden told Israel it shouldn't respond and was already victorious because it succeeded in intercepting most of the incoming fire.
Following through on his threats — based on falsely inflated numbers reported by the United Nations from terrorist propaganda released by Hamas entities in Gaza — Biden announced he was withholding military aid from Israel on May 9, a dangerous game of quid pro quo for which Biden’s party had impeached the former president.
Making matters worse, the Biden administration got caught on May 12 refusing to share critical intelligence with Israel regarding the locations of Hamas leaders and terrorist tunnels inside the Gaza Strip. If Israel were to back down from its military operation to clear the last Hamas stronghold of Rafah, only then would Biden share the intel.
By demanding Israel lay down arms against Hamas — thereby allowing the terrorists to live to fight another day, reconstitute, and follow through on its pledge to carry out more October 7-style massacres — withholding congressionally appropriated military aid, and refusing to share critical intelligence, Biden proved he’s quite good at losing an ally in three easy yet inexplicable steps.
And these actions don’t even include the administration’s actions unfreezing billions of dollars for Iran on September 11 and November 14, allowing Tehran to profit billions through unpunished illicit oil sales, or the May 7 decision to waive restrictions on weapons to unstable terrorist-controlled Lebanon on Israel's northern border. Don't forget about Biden's decision to allow sanctions on Iran's missile program to expire on October 18, either.
If Biden were really worried about the plight of civilians in the Gaza Strip, wouldn’t he want to ensure Israel had the best intelligence available for targeting terrorists and their infrastructure — as well as the best, most precise weapons at its disposal to strike such targets? Of course.
But that’s not what Biden’s worried about because there aren’t worries there to be had. Israel has kept the combatant-to-civilian casualty ratio at just 1:1.14 — better than United States’ 1:2.5 during the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul and far better than the longer-ago 1945 Battle of Manilla in which the U.S. ratio was 1:6.
As the Biden administration’s abandonment of Israel escalated, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the Jewish State would stand alone if it had to and plunged ahead with the military operation to clear Hamas out of Rafah while continuing to aid civilian evacuations. Netanyahu and Israel realized, like several others have since Biden took office, that the U.S. is no longer a reliable ally on whom they can depend.
Biden’s previous upending of relationships included his unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan that earned him a formal censure by U.K. parliament and a snub of our oldest ally that saw France recall its U.S. ambassador in rage.
Each time Biden has undermined America’s relationship with its allies or botched what should have been an easy layup showing U.S. leadership of the free world, our foes have taken note and licked their proverbial chops.
There’s a reason Russia invaded Ukraine when it did, a reason Iran felt safe launching an unprecedented direct attack on Israel, and plenty of explanation for why China is escalating its harassment of Taiwan.
Three-plus years into Biden’s first term and it’s clear his legacy is not just domestic crises, but a destablization of the globe and a destruction of the trust placed in the U.S. by the free world that will take years to restore.