A decade ago, former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates famously declared that Joe Biden, ‘has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.’
Secretary Gates – you’ll never believe what Joe’s done now.
President Biden has made, perhaps, his most incompetent policy blunder yet (at least since his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan).
In an interview Wednesday, Biden threatened to block the transfer of U.S. weapons to Israel, if the Jewish State launches a military operation against Hamas’s last remaining stronghold in southern Gaza.
His ultimatum comes nearly seven months to the day of the October 7 slaughter – and after the White House admitted they had already secretly halted the delivery of bunker-busting bombs that Israel requires to root out terrorists hiding in deeply buried underground tunnels.
Indeed, the mastermind of the Hamas massacre, Yahya Sinwar, is believed to be sheltering in these tunnels – cynically dug beneath the feet of about 1.3 million Palestinians.
It’s not only layers of concrete, dirt and sand that shield these terrorists from the Israeli military. These monsters hide under women and children.
But Biden blames Israel.
It’s not only layers of concrete, dirt and sand that shield these terrorists from the Israeli military. These monsters hide under women and children. (Above) Palestinian children in Central Gaza on May 11
Indeed, the mastermind of the Hamas massacre, Yahya Sinwar (above), is believed to be sheltering in these tunnels – cynically dug beneath the feet of about 1.3 million Palestinians.
In an interview Wednesday, Biden threatened to block the transfer of U.S. weapons to Israel , if the Jewish State launches a military operation against Hamas ‘s last remaining stronghold in southern Gaza .
‘Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those [U.S.] bombs,’ Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett. ‘…it’s just wrong.’
Consider the impact of this new Biden Doctrine: It is nothing less than an endorsement of Hamas’s use of human shields.
The President’s message to terrorists the world over is that if they embed themselves in mosques, schools, hospitals, homes and refugee camps, the United States of America will protect them.
What an appalling new precedent – and it didn’t need to be this way.
There were many viable policy alternatives that President Biden could have pursued before validating Hamas’s strategy of maximizing civilian casualties.
BLOCK AID FOR EGYPT, NOT ARMS FOR ISRAEL
Instead of cutting off arms transfers to Israel, the Biden administration could have leveraged $1 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Egypt to force President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to take Gazan refugees.
Egypt has all the capability necessary to temporarily shelter Palestinians in the vast empty spaces of the Sinai Peninsula – the region just West of Rafah and nearly the size of West Virginia. This would allow for the evacuation of civilians and the final defeat of Hamas before the phased return of Palestinians to Gaza.
To date, Egypt has refused to accept refugees because el-Sisi sees elements of the Palestinian population, especially the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas, as an extremist threat to his rule.
Egypt has all the capability necessary to temporarily shelter Palestinians in the vast empty spaces of the Sinai Peninsula – the region just West of Rafah and nearly the size of West Virginia.
Instead of cutting off arms transfers to Israel, the Biden administration could have leveraged $1 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Egypt to force President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (above, right) to take Gazan refugees.
Western government officials have told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies that several Gulf States have even offered el-Sisi an additional $40 billion in economic aid to open Egypt’s northern border to Palestinian refugees.
Still, he has not budged.
American pressure would surely change that calculus.
U.S. aid to Egypt should be made conditional on Cairo alleviating the humanitarian suffering in Gaza. And el-Sisi should be held accountable for allowing Hamas, for years, to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza exacerbating the current crisis.
PUT MOSSAD TARGETS ON HAMAS LEADERS
While Palestinians suffer under the thumb of Hamas – the terror group’s leadership lives in luxury more than one thousand miles away in the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.
Today, Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh and his commanders living in Doha, Qatar are estimated to be worth $11 billion. They stand in the way of an immediate temporary Israeli ceasefire by refusing to release 132 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.
But perversely, President Biden rewarded Qatar by naming the country a ‘major non-NATO U.S. Ally’ in 2022, despite its harboring of Hamas, which was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. as far back as 1997.
Today, Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh (seated above right) and his commanders living in Doha, Qatar are estimated to be worth $11 billion
The U.S. should give Doha a two-week deadline: Convince your Hamas guests to release the hostages back or the Biden administration will revoke Qatar’s major non-NATO status and designate Qatar as a state sponsor of terrorism.
In the long term, the U.S. should be pressuring Qatar’s Emir to expel Hamas’s leadership altogether – then let Mossad deal with them.
STRANGLE HAMAS’S PATRONS
The Islamic Republic of Iran sends $100 million to Hamas, $700 million to Hezbollah, and tens of millions to Islamic Jihad every year, according to Israel. President Biden can take steps today to choke off this terror-funding pipeline.
First, the White House could end its policy of appeasement toward Iran by halting the release of billions of dollars in oil funds, which were frozen during the Trump administration. These monies fund the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and terror proxies throughout the Middle East.
Secondly, the administration can do more to shut down the stream of illicit oil sale revenues that continue to flow into Iran.
For example, Malaysia’s Prime Minister, who refused to condemn the October 7 massacre, has vowed to maintain ties to Hamas even if that leaves Kuala Lumpur vulnerable to Western sanctions. The U.S. Treasury Department has found that Malaysia is buying oil from Tehran is clear defiance of sanctions.
President Biden should make an example of Malaysia by cracking down on this illicit trade that fuels international terrorism.
In contrast, the White House has taken a different approach – and abandoned an ally in the process.
Maybe it’s all about presidential politics: Biden has been desperate to rid himself of the ‘Genocide Joe’ label affixed to him by Hamas sympathizers inside and outside of the Democratic Party.
He hopes that by betraying Israel, he will win back far-left supporters who threaten to withhold their support for him in November. But this cynical strategy is fated to fail.
Biden won’t mollify the ‘From the River to the Sea’ radicals on American campuses, bring the war in Gaza to a speedier conclusion or secure the release of a single hostage, alive or dead.
However, he has established a perverse new doctrine that generations of Americans will come to regret.
Mark Dubowitz is Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ chief executive. Ben Cohen is an FDD senior analyst