The State Department, one of the uglier buildings in Washington, D.C., has all but relocated to Dearborn, Michigan, at least as far as the Israeli-Hamas conflict goes.
Sure, there are dozens and dozens of career staffers at Foggy Bottom that are boycotting Uber Eats and Door Dash for lunch, participating in a hunger strike to protest their boss’ stance of defending Israel against the modern-day Nazis who carried out the most gruesome and coordinated attack on Jews since the Holocaust. The day will be just perfect if all the cubicles eschewing the Styrofoam takeout containers for one day stream Temple Of The Dog on repeat for the entire lunch hour. The real question is, do they honestly have all that much to protest?
Sino generally refers to matters relating to China, but for the purposes of this column, SINO could just as easily stand for Support In Name Only, because that’s really been the Biden administration’s policy in the conflict since the protests here in the States began.
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On the positive side of the ledger, Joe Biden did a few things that were admirable. He called the attacks what they were – atrocities. He condemned them vigorously. Okay, he did so as vigorously as an 81-year old man who’s the most feeble occupant of the Oval Office since FDR can. He moved warships into the Red Sea to help provide muscle in order to dissuade Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies from acting on the impulse to pile on. It may have slowed down Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon a bit, but the Houthis are acting with relatively impunity and trying to show others in the region that our Navy is a paper tiger. And up until now, the United States has been relatively compliant in providing weapons, both offensive and defensive, to assist Israel in their fight against Hamas. But the drumbeat of the coming November election, and whether or not Biden can hold Michigan and their 15 Electoral Votes, is already undermining the stated pro-Israel policy.
Karine Jean-Pierre at the podium in the James Brady press room at the White House was asked again today about support for Israel. Here was her carefully read briefing book answer.
White House when asked what Biden’s message to is to Arab-Americans as he visits Michigan tomorrow: “Israel has a right to defend it self” pic.twitter.com/TRr2K5CQLZ
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) January 31, 2024
So we stand by Israel’s right to defend itself, which took about 8 seconds to say, followed by the qualifier, as long as they do it in the most humanitarian way possible, which took a lot longer to say, followed by a minute and a half of fawning over the poor plight of the Palestinians, and how much we want to help them in any way possible. Karine didn’t spend any of that time talking about the victims of the attacks on October 7th, like this one.
Former hostage Mia Regev shared that while in Gaza: “They tore off my clothes. They took my identity and my name from me. The terrorist who was watching over me told me every day that if the army came to save me, then he would shoot me immediately.”
Mia also recounted how… pic.twitter.com/Nd2S4ulr1j
— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) January 31, 2024
Instead, Jean-Pierre read a one-line statement, with the qualifier, that Israel can defend herself. From what, exactly? Karine doesn’t go into details. The details in the body of her answer are reserved for Michigan Democratic voters’ consumption, and those details only describe the horrors Gazans are facing and what the administration is trying to do to ameliorate them.
As for continued weapons support, White House leaks have been reported that Biden is threatening to withhold further weapons sales to Israel until Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agrees to slow down or cease hostilities. Keep in mind that the pressure to get Israel to stop fighting is not being driven by events on the ground or the current status of the threats against the tiny nation, but rather the politics Joe Biden is having to contend with domestically with the progressive wing of his base.
If you want to see what political pressure looks like, here’s the most recent appearances by Joe Biden from all over the country.
Protests over Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war have become so routine that White House aides now expect him to be confronted every time he speaks.https://t.co/f06rPtXHb4
A look back at some of the recent cease-fire protests that interrupted Biden events👇 pic.twitter.com/vshMgPawWL
— POLITICO (@politico) January 30, 2024
The protests are working. It’s clear that Joe Biden is rattled. He’s going to Michigan today, and among the items his campaign desired to put on the itinerary was to be a meeting with Dearborn, Michigan Mayor Abdullah Hammoud. He refused to meet with the President. He snubbed Biden because of his support of Israel against the terrorists.
In the House of Representatives Wednesday, Republicans forced the Democrats to cast another walk the plank vote. This time, it was a resolution on whether members of Hamas, the ones who committed the rapes, the killings, the beheadings, the burning alive of infants, the kidnappings, whether they should be allowed into the United States. The vote was 422-2-1. Cori Bush of Missouri and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan cast the two lone votes to allow Hamas terrorists into the U.S., because to them, Hamas aren’t terrorists. They’re freedom fighters, and freedom fighters are supposed to be celebrated, especially when they’re killing their Jewish oppressors. Delia Ramirez of Illinois was in the chamber, but couldn’t take a firm position on what should be the potential immigration status of terrorists, and voted present instead. Courage.
The State Department is undertaking an insidious study at the request of Secretary of State Antony Blinken. It seems that while there are still rockets being fired into Israel, while terrorists are literally being flushed out of flooded tunnels all over Gaza, Tony Blinken is asking his lunch-deprived staffers to come up with a report on how to get to a position where the United States government can officially recognize Palestine as a state and push the two-state solution forward. Not only is there no Palestinian entity out there either presently or in the near future that A) recognizes Israel’s right to exist, or B) doesn’t want it all – from the river to the sea, as it were. Not one. And Netanyahu, fighting for his own political survival as much as he’s leading a war cabinet to fight for Israel’s survival, has rejected the two-state solution as a non-starter. He’s actually beginning to see a little bit of a bounce back in his polling after cratering in support after the 10/7 attacks, largely because he’s saying he’s the only person standing between Israelis and the United States and U.N.’s attempt to force a two-state solution with terrorists on them. Now I certainly am not a diplomat. And I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But what I do know is what support for Israel looks like. This ain’t it.
Fresh polling is out, and as usual, it’s a mixed bag. Bloomberg has a series of swing state polls, with former President Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in Michigan by 5, outside the margin of cheat. Yet Quinnipiac is out today with the second major national poll since Trump became the de facto GOP nominee after routs in Iowa and New Hampshire, showing Biden now up significantly. My guess is the Bloomberg poll is probably a little more accurate, because Joe Biden is literally dropping what he’s doing and heading to the Wolverine State to shore up support in a state that he should already have in the bag. He doesn’t, because the largest collection of Muslim-Americans, most of them Democratic voters, reside in Michigan, and they’re not happy at all with Biden’s even tepid support for Israel.
Michigan’s politics are playing a role in what type of response the United States chooses to take nearly a week after the deadly Tower 22 attack in Jordan, killing three so far and critically wounding dozens of U.S. servicemembers. Too big a response, a large bloc of his voting base stays home and the protests increase and intensify. Too little a response, more attacks by Iran occur, and more U.S. troops around the world die as a result. Too big a response, it makes untenable and hypocritical the attempt to throttle Netanyahu and the Israelis in their existential war with terrorists. Too little of a response, an attack on the homeland is all but cemented. Why?
9 million people have illegally crossed our Southern border since Joe Biden mumbled his oath of office three years ago. 10% of that 9 million is 900,000. 1% of that is 90,000. One-tenth of 1% is 9,000. One-hundredth of 1% is 900. Actuarial math would dictate that at a very minimum, .01% of the illegals that have flooded into the country are jihadists. Sleeper cell agents. Terrorists. Murderers. 900 of them. We have no idea who they are, where they are, on who’s authority they act, or when it’ll happen. 19 terrorists with box cutters and a few hours of flight school damn near took the country down in 2001. Imagine what 900 of them, at the very least, and probably more, could do if they’re coordinated and financed with money that Joe Biden freed up for them. Regardless of the exact number, they’re here, and all the State Department staffers seem to worry about is what they won’t be having for lunch today.
I’m more worried about reestablishing deterrence. That will only happen if we enable, defend, and assist Israel in their effort against extremism, and we blow a whole lot of things up that Iran cares about, end the lives of a lot of Iranian enablers of terrorism, and begin starving them of cash again.
Oh, and just in case you’re curious, I had pastrami for lunch today. It was glorious.
