Tag Archives: foreign policy

Eight Ways

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The Biden administration, through Secretary of State Antony Blinken, is pushing Israel, even as that nation is in the early stages of a war for its very survival, to concern itself with what happens afterward, should it win that struggle. Never mind that this is a Party that has never had a coherent strategy for exiting a war, much less any idea of what victory conditions would look like, from Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam War and Party’s refusal under Ford to give the south a survivable way off the field, to Barack Obama’s disastrous decisions in quitting Iraq, to Joe Biden’s cut-and-run from Afghanistan.

Blinken’s diktats include no less than Five Nos and Three Musts, to use The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial terminology:

No forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza…. No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza.

And

must include the Palestinian people’s voices and aspirations at the center of postcrisis governance in Gaza. It must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. And it must include…a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in states of their own, with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity and dignity.

Whether or not any of those Nos or Musts are good ideas, it is not for this administration to dictate terms to Israel. It’s solely Israel’s responsibility to dictate terms to Hamas.

Instead, Blinken, to paraphrase a French President and philosopher:

…is not really engaged in responsible behavior. His is not well brought-up behavior. He missed eight good opportunities to keep quiet.

Unnecessary Risk

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Israel is taking one, and it’s doing so, I speculate, under pressure from the Biden administration.

Israel will start four-hour humanitarian pauses in parts of northern Gaza every day, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Thursday.

This is an extremely foolish risk to run. The only reason Israel should be taking any sort of cease fire pause, whether “humanitarian” or operational, would be to allow logistics to catch up with Israel’s advancing forces and to reestablish/reinforce coordination among the leading elements and between them and follow-on units. Furthermore, pause(s) never should be scheduled, nor should they occur with advance notice to the terrorists, as these pauses are.

On top of that, four hours is plenty of time for Hamas to recover, rest to an important degree, get its own logistics caught up, and relocate its terrorists for resumed combat along axes of its choosing and with the Israeli momentum broken by the “pause.” Four hours also is plenty of time for Hamas to relocate and hide anew the victims it has kidnapped. That’s especially the case if the four-hour periods are routinely repeated at regular and prior-notice times.

Not Possible

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Qatar and Egypt are, supposedly, working with Hamas to get 15 of Hamas’ 240 and more kidnap victims released in return for a 48-hour “cease” fire.

This shouldn’t be possible. Hamas refuses even to tell these two nations—or anyone else—how many kidnappees they’re holding, much less who they are or what their condition is.

Beyond that, any cease fire won’t involve the terrorist Hamas ending its attacks. Such a foolishness would only enable the terrorists to rest, regroup, and refit to continue fighting from replenished fortifications and from renewed positions behind Gazan human shields.

Such a foolishness also would enable the terrorists to relocate the kidnappees they’re holding, making it more difficult to locate and free them.

There can be no cease fire until there are no more of Hamas at which to fire.

Full stop.

“Backlash”

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The Wall Street Journal opened one of its Friday editorials with this immoral bit of misapprehension:

President Biden has been stalwart in backing Israel’s right to destroy Hamas after the October 7 massacre. But a political backlash is growing, in the Democratic Party and abroad, to rein in Israel before it can achieve its military objectives.

No, it’s not a political backlash that’s growing in the Progressive-Democratic Party and “abroad.” It’s overt political support for Hamas and the terrorist mayhem this terrorist gang is, and has been for decades, committing.

Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s hand-picked Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is shamefully uncertain about the terrorism of Hamas. As paraphrased by WSJ:

Mr Blinken presented “humanitarian pauses” as critical to protecting Gazans, getting them aid, and freeing Israeli and US hostages.

On the contrary, Gazans are best protected by Hamas stopping their use of Gazans as shields in the fighting and their use of Gazans’ residences, schools, and hospitals as weapons storage caches and as rocket launching facilities.

When the Hamas terrorists (excuse the redundancy, but the emphasis is too badly needed) stop stealing the aid that is coming in, then Gazans will start getting it.

Israel already has offered to discuss a ceasefire—for which Blinken’s humanitarian pauses are just a disingenuous euphemism—after the Hamas terrorists release all of those hostages. Hamas has refused the offer.

On the flip side, all any ceasefire—regardless of duration or geographic scope or label—will do is give Hamas time to regroup and refit along with space to relocate and re-hide the hostages. It’s disgusting that anyone in the Biden administration supports such succor for the terrorists, much less that our President and SecState so overtly do.

Ceasefire

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The Editors at The Wall Street Journal told a sob story of countries are pushing for pause in Israeli attacks to allow more relief for civilians. Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s SecState Antony Blinken appears to be sympathetic to such a ceasefire:

[W]e have an obligation to do everything we can, if Hamas is not going to do it, to look out for people in Gaza. So, we are working on a mechanism that can get fuel to where it’s needed, particularly hospitals, bakeries, desalination plants.

That mechanism centers on some sort of ceasefire.

Then the Editors turned on the sobbing waterworks, crying over babies in Gaza hospital neonatal ICUs, patients requiring respiratory equipment or dialysis machines, Gaza hospitals low on fuel for their electrical power needs, and on and on, in their own support for a ceasefire. These really are tragedies in progress, but the Editors shed their crocodile tears all the while shamefully doing only a once over lightly attribution of Gazan deaths, and the increasing risks to those babies, hospital patients, and the hospitals themselves to Hamas’ use of those civilians and hospitals—and hostages—as shields for the Hamas terrorists.

No. The only beneficiary of a ceasefire—or a “temporary, localized pause” in SecState Antony Blinken’s cynical euphemism and between which NSC spokesman John Kirby so disingenuously pretends to draw a distinction—is the terrorist Hamas. Not at all beneficiary would be Gazan civilians, babies, hospital patients, hospitals, hostages, or future hostages such a payoff to the terrorists would engender.

The only ceasefire there needs to be, there should be, is the one at the end when Hamas is utterly destroyed, and there’s nothing left at which to fire.

Full stop.