The good, bad, and ugly in Biden’s record of supporting Israel

I recall tearing up at hearing Biden’s strong and unequivocal message while driving back with my wife from our son’s Army outpost outside of Ramallah. His words resonated deeply with a profoundly grief- and anxiety-stricken Israeli people still reeling from the bloodthirsty invasion and wary of the long road ahead. The president spoke for the American public, whose friendship, diplomatic support, and material backing would prove critical to the Jewish state’s effort to combat the terrorist armies looming on its borders, and for this, we were and are sincerely grateful.

But somewhere along the way, the Biden administration, spurred by the increasingly militant, malignant left-wing of the Democratic Party, lost its nerve, succumbing in rhetoric and action to a craven “yes, but” search for “balance” that threatens to buoy the enemies of freedom. As we mark the first anniversary of the Hamas assault, it’s fair to wonder: How did we get here?

The good

In the spirit of the Jewish High Holidays, I’ll begin by appreciating the material and verbal blessings that the United States has showered upon Israel. Since last October, the administration has dispatched to the Jewish state more than 500 cargo planes and more than a hundred ships, conveying more than 50,000 tons of munitions and other military equipment. Congress passed, and Biden signed, a $17 billion aid package to bolster Israel’s fight against Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy on its northern border.

An October congressional resolution, enacted by an overwhelming 412-10 vote in the House and a unanimous 97-0 margin in the Senate, proclaimed that the United States “stands with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists … reaffirms the United States’s commitment to Israel’s security … and stands ready to assist Israel with emergency resupply and other security, diplomatic, and intelligence support.” Polls show enduringly sturdy support for the Jewish state.

Biden famously told Iran and Hezbollah, “Don’t,” backstopping his threat by moving carrier groups and other military assets into the region. Meanwhile, White House spokesman John Kirby grew emotional during a CNN interview days after the attack, in which he detailed and condemned Hamas’s brutality. Other White House officials have admirably held the line in hostile environments, such as the acutely morally compromised United Nations General Assembly.

And just last week, after Iran fired more than 200 ballistic missiles at Israel’s population centers, forcing our family and millions of other Israelis into our bomb shelters for nearly an hour, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, “This is a significant escalation by Iran, a significant event. We have made clear that there will be … severe consequences for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case.”

The bad

Yet the Biden administration has faltered at key moments, among other things: effectively blocking for months Israel’s entry into Gaza’s Rafah region, where Hamas had hidden hostages and smuggled weapons from Egypt (Vice President Kamala Harris claimed to have “studied the maps” and concluded a Rafah offensive should be off-limits); withholding weapons and munitions at key moments; and impeding a vigorous Israeli response to an earlier Iranian ballistic missile attack, urging Israel to “take the win.” What happened to “ironclad support”?

The most charitable explanation, perhaps, is that neither Biden nor Harris wants to see an expanded war during an election year. A Middle East spiraling out of control only feeds the perception by many Americans that the world has become a much more dangerous place since 2021, and the administration simply wants things to quiet down.

Another explanation is absence: The president’s apparent physical and cognitive decline have lately hindered the robust defense of freedom he articulated a year ago when he boldly entered a war zone. Biden’s retreat from public view has emboldened both Israel’s enemies abroad and its detractors within the administration. As former Washington Examiner Executive Editor Seth Mandel recently wrote, the U.S. resembles nothing so much as “a headless superpower in a time of war.” 

Then, too, the administration’s sins of omission and commission reflect a vestigial allegiance to the Obama administration’s willful blindness to the Iranian threat. Imposing “daylight” between Israel and the U.S., unfreezing billions of dollars in Iranian assets, and neglecting the mullahs’ burgeoning ballistic missile program served only to revitalize Iran’s capacity to carry out its plan of exterminating the Little Satan (Israel) and the Great Satan (the U.S.). Indeed, as National Review editorialized last week, “Iran’s ballistic missile attack is a failure of Democratic appeasement.” And instead of providing Israel with “logistical and intelligence support” to target the clerics’ nuclear program and other sensitive sites, as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Rich Goldberg recently wrote, the administration is insisting that Israel’s counterattack against Iran’s latest aggression be done “proportionally.” (As this article went to press, Israel was readying that response.)

Most problematically, however, Biden and company have kowtowed to a restive left-wing hungry to demonize the Jewish state. And that’s where things have gotten ugly.

The ugly

Washington Examiner readers needn’t be reminded of the startling emergence of the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party, which has unapologetically embraced the anti-Israel cause, marching proudly under Hamas and Hezbollah flags through the streets of New York and Washington (to say nothing of European capitals). 

Nowhere has this sentiment been more ignominiously demonstrated than at American universities, where progressive groups spent months occupying campus quads, barring entry to Jewish students, and chanting genocidal slogans.

Perhaps more troubling, though, is how Harris’s campaign has genuflected to these hateful fanatics, openly courting the “uncommitted” faction that withheld support from the Democratic ticket over Israel. In parallel, her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), argued that the pro-terrorism protesters were “speaking out for all the right reasons,” while Biden himself contended at the Democratic National Convention that they “have a point.” Instead of rejecting these morally and intellectually grotesque activists, Harris and Walz have indulged them.

(Former President Donald Trump’s instability has also been unhelpful, including when he recently likened Israel and Iran to “two kids fighting in the schoolyard.” Much more constructive: The debate statement by his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), that “it’s up to Israel what they think they need to do to keep their country safe, and we should support our allies wherever they are when they’re fighting the bad guys.”)

But I’ll close with some optimism: Some mainstream Democrats are fighting ferociously to maintain their party’s traditional support for the Jewish state and to extinguish the flames of antisemitism. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) stand out for their extraordinary courage amid vicious progressive slander. They are genuine, righteous gentiles. To their indomitably pro-Israel ranks, we can add prominent Jewish Democrats like Govs. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) and Jared Polis (D-CO). From the cadre of Democratic Israel haters, we can subtract the odious Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO) — both soundly defeated earlier this year in primary elections. Meanwhile, many university administrators, perhaps chastened by the congressional hearings that contributed to the ouster of Harvard’s and Penn’s presidents for their failure to stem campus antisemitism, appear to have cracked down on the “tentifadas” this semester. We can only hope Israel’s stalwart friends will not only hold the line but advance the standing of the Jewish state within the party.

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“Israel will be a safe, secure, Jewish, and Democratic state today, tomorrow, and forever,” Biden vowed while in country a year ago. With American assistance, Israel has restored to its citizens a measure of safety and security over the past year, bringing both Hamas and Hezbollah to heel — even as tens of thousands of Israelis remain unable to return to their homes in the north and as more than a hundred remain in captivity in Gaza. 

But while Israelis are deeply grateful to the Biden administration and Congress for their vigorous rhetorical and material support, there remains a cause for concern. As we mark the anniversary of Hamas’s malicious attack, our gratitude is tempered by our worry. 

Michael M. Rosen is an attorney and writer in Israel and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.