President Joe Biden’s endorsement Friday of a call by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for Israel to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold new elections marks the worst crisis in the history of U.S.-Israel relations.
Israel is currently fighting to defeat Hamas, which murdered 1,200 people in the October 7 terror attack. It is also under attack from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and has even faced missile attacks launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen.
All of these groups are funded and armed by Iran, which views the United States as its enemy. Instead of backing Israel fully, Biden is not only criticizing Israel in increasingly strident terms, but demanding it remove its democratic leader.
Biden is also slapping sanctions on Israelis who have not been convicted of any crime; this week, he also sanctioned two geographic areas under Israeli control in the West Bank. At the same time, he gave Iran a $10 billion sanctions waiver.
Meanwhile, the Senate — at Schumer’s direction — is refusing to pass billions of dollars in military aid for Israel. And there are reports that the Biden administration is “slow-walking” deliveries of ammunition already promised to Israel.
This is happening because Netanyahu — like most Israelis — rejects Biden’s plan to impose a Palestinian state after the war, which would reward Hamas for terror. Israelis also want to win the war — not to wait, and allow Hamas to survive.
Biden is furious, and wants Netanyahu out of the way. So he, and Schumer, have sent a message to Israel: if you do not replace Netanyahu, you will not be receiving more money and more weapons. You will be on your own against terror.
If Israel complies, and elects a new leader — should one be found who accepts Biden’s policies, which are rejected by the majority of Israelis — then Israel might receive aid and ammunition, but it would definitely fall short of its war goals. It would probably not be able to complete the defeat of Hamas in Rafah, and it would almost certainly be unable to secure northern Israel against Hezbollah. Israeli shipping through the Red Sea will remain impossible. Israel will lose the war.
This is a terrible dilemma, one that has no precedent in the history of U.S-Israel relations. Barack Obama triggered a crisis in 2015 by imposing the Iran nuclear deal on Israel, which Netanyahu opposed publicly because it allowed Iran to emerge as a nuclear power after a decade, and gave Iran money with which to fund terrorism. That was bad enough. What Biden is doing is far worse, involving active political interference in Israel in the midst of an existential conflict.
The message to Israel’s enemies is clear: they are winning, despite Israel’s success against Hamas in Gaza thus war. The Biden Administration is rewarding Islamic terror, as well as the Iranian regime, apparently blind to the consequences.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.