Hamas saw that even after they had shot rockets at Jerusalem, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki meekly explained, “We are continuing to closely monitor the violence in Israel. We have serious concerns about the situation, as the national security advisor condemns the expulsion of Muslims from their homes, and we also condemn the launching of rockets into Israel.”
Aside from the statement leading with condemnation of Israel, the very comparison between legal proceedings and shooting at civilians is outrageous and morally repugnant and will only embolden Hamas.
In light of the bombardment against Israel, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said he “condemns the rocket barrages, supports Israel’s right to defend itself, and calls on all parties to restore calm.” His remarks indicate that although Israel has the right to defend herself, Israel should artificially restrain her response irrespective of the assessment of Israel’s own military leaders.
The limited support from the current administration in Washington is a boon for the Iranian proxies in the Gaza Strip who instigated and are prosecuting this war. Iran and Hamas have come to understand that Israel no longer enjoys the same DC political embrace it benefited from in recent years. And they plan to make the most of this perceived distance.
Regardless of what one thinks about the previous presidency, Hamas didn’t have the temerity to act in such a violent and reckless manner between 2017-2020. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to conclude that Israel’s adversaries knew that the US stood strongly with Israel and there would be swift retribution if Israel was attacked. They certainly don’t think that way now.
Unlike the previous administration, Joe Biden’s foreign policy team has made resetting the US relations with the Palestinian Authority a priority. And while Hamas and Fatah remain potent rivals, the administration has chosen to return to the rut that criticizing Israel is necessary to keep dialoguing with the Palestinian side.
This is not only poor diplomatic strategy but it is morally repugnant. There can be no comparison between Israel and Hamas, no shared responsibility for the situation. There is no doubt about who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in this story. The stuttering of the administration manifested itself in a 45-minute announcement within an announcement. The former supporting the Palestinians and the latter affirming the right of Israel to defend itself, encouraging the continuation of violence.
It should be noted that in the Middle East an interpretation of non-support leads to instability. The US and the new administration are not to blame for the situation but they must be aware of the consequences of their position and how they are perceived in the neighborhood.
It is hard to imagine a simpler conflict with which to unambiguously support Israel than the one unfolding in Israel right now. Hamas resorting to a playbook that it has employed multiple times in the recent past: using Palestinian human shields to shoot missiles at Israeli civilian populations and then trying to blame Israel for a disproportionate response when more of Gaza’s civilians are killed. Hamas found a small nationalist issue during the waning days of Ramadan to fan the fire, and it hopes to gain empathy from the international community. The tragic results only confirm Hamas’s simplistic strategy.
Yet Hamas understood that the Biden administration would have a difficult time unambiguously condemning the terrorist organization, as the US is in the middle of delicate negotiations with Hamas patron Iran, there is a growing constituency of progressives that are anti-Israel, resentment toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, etc. The US has not even nominated an ambassador to Israel yet!
Biden has spent four decades in public office in which he regularly demonstrated a high degree of sensitivity toward Israel’s needs, and yet, he has also retained much of the Obama foreign policy team, which was widely viewed as hypercritical of Israel.
What will Biden’s overall approach to Israel be? If it is anything like his administration’s ineffective response to Hamas’s war on Israel, we are in for four years of instability and violence.
It is time for Israel (and her enemies) to find out what Biden’s real attitude toward Israel is.
The author is the mayor of Efrat.