The Biden Administration: No Friend of Israel

 

 

 

In spite of what several Jewish organizations  have said, it has become obvious that the new Biden Administration is going to have a fairly hostile relationship with Israel. particularly when it comes to America's  relationship with Israel. Worrying about the fact that President Biden has never returned Israeli PM Netanyahu's phone call is a waste of energy. This is going to be Obama's 3rd term in every way, including his open dislike and opposition to Israel...on steroids. Since many of these organizations are far left  (J Street, ADL, New Israel Fund, etc.) and anti-Israel, they're not too upset. They apparently don't realize that anti-Israel means them as well...something that will become obvious once they're no longer necessary to the powers that be, Just like Left leaning Jews in the UK's Labour party found out eventually.

The fact that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris boycotted the AIPAC convention along with every other Democrat candidate except Senator Cory Booker(NJ-D) should have been a clear signpost about where this was going.

So are a  number of President Biden's 'executive orders' and appointments.

For starters, there's  Karen Jean-Pierre, now White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary. Aside from a long history of backing Israel haters like Reps. Omar, Tlaib, and AOC, and  she also was instrumental in getting the Democratic presidential candidates not to attend  the AIPAC conference.

Anthony Blinken, Biden's choice for Secretary of State is of Jewish descent but  has a long history of not being  pro-Israel. Among other things, he favored the Iran 'nuclear deal' of 2015 and also opposed designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who were responsible for numerous terrorists attacks as well as killing American servicemen and  training and arming Hezbollah, an officially designated terrorist group. He also apologized profusely  to Jew-hater Linda Sarsour when she was deemed a bit too openly anti-semitic(with good reason) and her appearance at the Democrat convention had to be scrubbed. He also referred to the anti-Israel J Street as “a constructive force"  at their 2015 J Street conference. Essentially, he picked sides a long time ago. 

Avril Haines, Biden's new Director of National Intelligence was one of the signers of a vicious J Street letter along with 30 other notoriously hostile-to-Israel former Obama foreign policy officials (Strobe Talbott, Martin Indyk, Dan Kurtzer, and Ben Rhodes).  The letter urged the 2020 Democratic platform to include more criticism of Israel and compared the Palestinian Arab terrorists and inciters and Israeli Jews by using the phrase “violence, terrorism, and incitement from ALL sides, as well as opposing Israel’s lawful sovereign rights in Judea and Samaria, most of which are in Area C, by rights under Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords. The letter also said that  Jews (and only Jews) have no rights  to build in historic Jewish lands; opposed Israeli “occupation” (a term that is falsely used by Israel haters to condemn Israel’s right to a part of her land since the San Remo Accords and whose rights were also restated in Article 80 of the UN Charter )As well as opposing  Jews  and only Jews building in eastern Jerusalem and Judea/Samaria. 

Reema Dodin is the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs in the Biden administration. She's of  Jordanian' descent and has a long history as a PLO propagandist. Among other things she's justified and even encouraged suicide bombings against Jews,  organized anti-Israel and anti-semitic rallies  at UC Berkeley as a member of the Muslim Student Association, and also was a mole for CAIR while she worked for Senator Dick Durbin. She has also spread blood libels that are as old of the Middle Ages, and condemned U.S. post-9-11 actions against the Taliban. She also blamed 9-11 on U.S. support for Israel.

Jan Psaki is the new White House Press Secretary. Some of you may remember her role in covering up the Benghazi affair during the Obama Administration. Aside from her new nickname 'Ms. Circle back' because of her inability to answer press questions, she also is also sufficiently anti-Israel  and arguably anti-semitic to merit a place on the squad. Let's see...she said in a press conference in 2015 that the Israeli Government's plan to build homes in Jerusalem, it's capitol   “flies in the face” of creating a climate conducive to a peace deal; and said that the United States and others in the international community “clearly vocalized” that they opposed Israeli construction in “East Jerusalem.”   Needless to say she has  said that 'Palestinian terrorism never had anything to do with preventing a 'peace deal.'

Nice, eh? 

In 2014, Ms. Psaki defended the US financing and working with a Hamas-Fatah unity government...and never mind that Hamas's charter calls for the worldwide murder of all Jews. She also defended then President Barack Obama's description of the deadly Islamist jihadist attack at a Paris kosher grocery as zealots who “randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.” Never mind that they specifically targeted a Kosher grocery and murdered four Jews, right? There's lots more but that's certainly enough.

Susan Rice is Director of the Domestic Policy Council. Since her experience is all in the foreign policy area, you have to wonder why. Since this office does not require confirmation, it could be that the new President wants her close by as an adviser. She might have problems getting a Senate confirmation obtaining Senate confirmation because she misled the American public by falsely claiming that the Benghazi terror attack was a spontaneous reaction to a little-known video.

Anyway, her feelings on Israel make her easily a suitable part of the squad. As Barack Obama's UN ambassador, Ms. Rice was notable for her criticism of Israel. Among other things, she criticized Israel for it's natural concern about the so called 'Iran Deal' and was a real fan of the Israel bashing UN 'Human Rights Council' and a big fan of President Obama's last kick at Israel, UN Resolution 2334 that called for Israel to return to what Abba Eban quite accurately called 'the Auschwitz borders', something  that would have forced Israel back to the indefensible pre 1967 borders, created thousands of homeless Jewish refugees and would have barred Jews forever from the West wall and other religious sites in East Jerusalem forever. As Obama's National Security adviser, she instructed then UN Ambassador Samantha Power to announce that  the US would abstain and let this disgraceful nonsense pass. 

I can still see the smile on her face when Ms. Rice's announced to the news. Meanwhile, Bipartisan members of Congress condemned 2334, and the House passed by a large majority a bipartisan resolution (H.Res. 11) against this disgusting exhibition of Jew hatred, which is what it iwas and is . 

Speaking of Samantha Power, she 's back too, as head of the United States Agency For International Development,  USAID. At one point, in her tenure in the Obama Administration, she openly said that the US should cut all aid to Israel,to  use the US military to blockade Israel and force Israel back to the pre 67 lines while  giving substantial aid to 'Palestine.' Which is why Biden and whoever is calling the shots wants her at the head of USAID. From there she can give millions of tax dollars to Mahmoud Abbas so that he can equip his army...and pay more terrorists to attack Israeli civilians. Since President Obama actually trained and equipped  Palestinian thugs and had US officers training them soldiers we will likely see more of that.

Hamas will certainly get lots of cash and assistance too, rest assured.

 Pete Buttigieg has changed from the mayor who ruined South Bend, Indiana to being Biden's Secretary of Transportation. He also boycotted the AIPAC convention and is on record as calling for sanctions against Israel for the sin of  building homes for it's citizens Israel in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.  Never mind that these areas are  home to 500,000 Jews,and are living on land designated for the Jewish homeland under binding international law. Buttigieg also wants the US re-entering the disastrous Iran deal which  he thinks was just dandy. He also somehow missed how the Iranian government increased military and terror activities in the Middle East, financed with the $150 billion of sanctions relief given to Iran in the Iran deal, for basically some 'promises' they never kept and never intended to. He also falsely blames Israel for lack of peace, as if Israel had never made any concessions or offerings and the Arabs had never refused them...as  though it was Israel paying terrorists to kill Arab civilians instead of the other way around. 

Deb Haaland is Biden's Secretary of the Interior. Among other things,  in June 2020, Congresswoman Deb Haaland (D-NM) signed a vicious letter (proudly announced on Haaland’s website), along with antisemites Ilhan Omar (D-MN), AOC (D-NY), and Betty McCollum (MN-04), etc., falsely accusing Israeli settlers of violence against Palestinians.  

In May 2018, after Israel troops had to shoot armed Hamas terrorists who were attempting to breach the Gaza border to “tear out the hearts from the bodies” of Israelis and murder Jewish children (they had maps in hand of the routes to Jewish kindergartens), Haaland tweeted: “The murder of 60 Palestinians in Gaza just as Ramadan begins weigh heavy on my heart today." Of course she never mentioned that even Hamas admitted they were all their combatants. What a sweetheart, right? 

Symone Sanders is  Senior Advisor and Chief Spokesperson to the Vice President, Kamala Harris. Symone is a big fan of raging  anti-semite Linda Sarsour who Sanders called a hero 'fighting for justice. She also likes the idea that BDS,  which is economic warfare against the Jewish people is just  'freedom of speech'.

 Ms, Sanders also is quite clear she doesn't equate 'criticism of Israel' with anti-semitism. Considering that her hero Linda Sarsour has called for what amounts to cheerleading for terrorism against Israeli men women and children and Israel's demise, let's just say Ms, Sanders isn't fooling anyone. Although since Kamala Harris has some similar opinions, Symone Sanders is a good fit for this job.

Kristin Clarke is Biden's choice for Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights This puts her in charge of   the Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Civil Rights Division. Interesting! In 1994, Ms, Clarke was president of Harvard's Black Student Union. And she invited none other then racist and Jew hating Tony Martin to speak at Harvard. According to the Harvard Crimson newspaper, Tony Martin “denounced the Jewish tradition and the Jewish people for holding a ‘monopoly’ on centuries-worth of the notion of divinely ordained African inferiority”; repeated “his belief that the ‘so-called Sages’ of the Babylonian Talmud were the earliest racists of recorded history.”

Almost comical considering that Jews funded the traditional Black colleges as well as the civil rights movement, and some even died for it. You have to wonder why a number of blacks like the BLM movement and the Nation of Islam target Jews. Perhaps because they tend to be an easy target and not strike back?

No shocker...no surprise: Martin’s primary textbook for his African American history course at Wellesley was “The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews,” published by Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam in 1991. That cute little book is about as accurate than the 'Protocols of Zion' forgery the Russians made up. Kristen Clarke has endorsed Martin, saying: “Professor Martin is an intelligent, well-versed Black intellectual who bases his information on indisputable fact.” Right. Talk about racism....!

Apparently Ms. Clarke also dislikes Asians. As Tucker Carlson pointed out recently, “Kristen Clarke has never shed these views. They’ve simply become more sophisticated. Just last year, [as a lawyer] Clarke was fighting for the crudest kind of racial discrimination in college admissions, saying it was “madness” for the federal government to take the side of Asian applicants who had probably been denied college admission [purely because] on the basis of their skin color.

Anyone familiar with the case knows it wasn't because of their skin color. It was because the universities in question love diversity, to the point of accepting certain ethnicities while  turning away more accomplished students.

As for Israel,  Ms. Clarke's organization,  'The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law,' tweeted a picture that  included anti-semites Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory, with the caption “Proud to see leaders and advocates committed to racial justice and social justice on #Time100.”

Civil rights division??? I don't think an unbiased observer would agree.

Robert Malley is the Biden pick for U.S. Special Envoy on Iran.   Malley has a long, alarming record of anti-Israel hostility and appeasement of Iran, Hamas, the PLO, Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and Syria. 

In January 2020, Malley condemned the targeted killings of IRGC terrorist-in-chief Qassem Soleimani who was planning more terrorist attacks on Americans.  Malley mistakenly claimed that killing Soleimani would likely lead to war.  Of course, it didn't except in his mind. 

Same with the sanctions  slapped on Iran by the Trump Administration. Those Sanctions caused Iran to reduce its military/terror expenditures by 25%, deprived the Iranian regime of funds to carry out its  activities, and reduced Iran’s funding of its terror proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Similarly, in November 2020, Malley condemned the targeted killing of top Iranian IRGC nuclear scientist and designated terrorist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Same thing. Taking out Fakhrizadeh likely saved lives and delayed Iran's nuclear program. 

As for Israel, Malley hates it with a passion. Malley has cheerfully adopted Hamas’ propaganda lie that Hamas is under siege from Israel. In addition, Malley favors dangerous and unlawful “unity” between the Hamas, a designated terror organization and the PLO. Malley also hascalled for the U.S. “to unveil a set of parameters” that would be suicidal for Israel – including creating a Palestinian state on the “1967 borders”; one-to-one swaps; dividing up Jerusalem; and bringing third-party armed forces into Judea-Samaria. Malley also condemned parts of the Abraham Accords normalizing relation between Israel and Arab nations, and has predicted that the Biden administration “would try to walk back or dilute parts of these normalization deals.” Since he also favors breaking off any arms sales or cooperation with the Sunni Arab states and Israel, you see where his mind is. Giving him this role in 'negotiating' with his Iranian pals is suicidal.

Maher Bitar Is Biden's pick as Senior Director for Intelligence on the NSC. His history?

He was the one of the  executive board members of Students for Justice In Palestine, an anti Israel and anti-semitic as well as the Palestine Solidarity Group. Both organizations had a long history of Jew hatred and Israel hatred as well as support of Hamas and the PLO. His new job? The former anti-Israel activist will coordinate intelligence between the White House and the intelligence community, receiving material from intelligence agencies, informing the intelligence community of White House policy, and deciding who gets access to secret information.Ordinarily, this job goes to an intelligence expert with experience in the field. So how did Bitar get it?

Maher Bitar went to work for UNRWA, interned at the misnamed and militantly anti-Israel Foundation for Middle East Peace, and studied at Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, writing papers on the so-called ‘Nakba’ and on ‘Palestinian’ activism. He  described Israel’s security barrier as Israel's“segregation wall.”

From there Bitar worked for the Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace. From there he went on to serve as the NSC’s Director for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs and as Samantha Power’s Deputy at the UN as part of the Obama team. During the Trump years,   Bitar became the general counsel to House Intelligence Committee Democrats, especially to Adam Schiff, which says something right there.

That's how Bitar worked his way up. Given his views, is there any sense in allowing him to deal with intelligence information? Who knows where it would end up once he gets his hands on it? And how would that effect our intel relationship with Israel and the Sunni Arab states? Would they even continue to send intel our way so someone like Bitar could get his paws on it?

Its obvious that a substantial portion of the Democrat Party has decided to abandon Israel and even to attempt to blackmail it into suicidal actions that would destroy it. 

Wendy Sherman is another Obama old hand. She is Joe Biden's choice for Deputy Secretary of State.

She also shares with the others an almost rabid hatred for Israel. Let's see. In 2015 she threatened Israel with losing US support if they refused to allow a Palestinian state on the Auschwitz borders, AKA pre 1967. She also was a big Arafat fan, referring to Yasser Arafat as 'the brave leader of a resistance movement.' This is the same Yasser Arafat that ordered two US diplomats, Ambassador Cleo Noel and DCM Curtis Moore to be tortured to death in Sudan. When their bodies were found, they had been so severely treated they could only be identified by their dental remains. And Ms. Sherman had to know this since she served as Under Secretary of State during the Obama second term years, 2011-2015.

She has also been very critical about the Abraham Accords, President Trump and Jared Kushner's peace efforts  and frankly, any pro Israel policies.

She also was critical of President Trump's Iran policies, including his sanctions which cut the Iranian illegal nuke program way back.This is to be expected since she was very involved in the 'negotians of the so called 'Iran deal.' She was also involved in the ransoming of 5 American hostages in January 2016.  In her book on the subject, she  failed to mention the enormous quid pro quo . Obama’s airlift of pallets filled with $1.7 billion of untraceable cash to Iran, Obama’s release of what amounted to spies Iranians in U.S. jails who were convicted of endangering U.S. security  by running a procurement network to supply Iran with U.S.-made microelectronics used in surface-to-air and cruise missiles like those recently launched by Iran. So of course she supports the so called Iran deal and wants it reinstated, even though the Iranians never actually abided by the conditions...especially the promise of allowing monitoring and inspections. In fact, the Iranian regime NEVER allowed UN IAEA inspectors in plants like Parchin and others where work on nuclear weaponry and uranium enrichment was suspected. In fact, the IAEA allowed Iran to 'self inspect' with pictures and videos the Iranians themselves provided..that could have been made anywhere.

The Iranians were also allowed to keep working on ballistic missiles as part of the deal. This when they are officially still in a state of war with America and have been since 1979...and were holding rallies burning American and Israeli flags and screaming "Death to Israel! Death To America!

So this is are who the new team consists of. Most of them if not all are openly anti-semitic,  and anti Israel, and some are frankly dangerous when it comes to  U.S. security and intelligence.

Another policy of the new administration involves cutting arms sales to Iran's enemies, especially on strategic aircraft...the Saudis and the UAE(United Arab Emirates) who have all been part of the Abraham Accords and who would likely be allies of Israel in any attempt to stop Iran's quest for nuclear weapons. Also, the Iran financed and armed  Houthi militias now attacking Saudi Arabia from bases in Yemen have now had their status as a 'terrorist group' removed in spite of numerous atrocities the Houthis have committed in that country. Since Yemen borders Saudi Arabia in the south, this looks like it was designed to keep the Saudi forces occupied to prevent them from any involvement with Iran.

Now that we're seeing the real picture, it's worth keeping in mind that if the new administration continues in this direction, we will see the relationship between Israel and the US falter and perhaps even voided. The Israelis can simply not go along with the suicidal actions the 3rd Obama Administration is going to try and force them into. No country would.

Since the US receives far more in goods and services and Israel's military aid, unlike almost every other recipient gets no cash but credit that must be spent to buy at American Defense companies. Believe it or not, America gets far more in value than it gives Israel.  But, assuming that means nothing to the present administration and the relationship is curtailed, there are some benefits for Israel if it comes to that. 

More on this at another time.

 

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.