Wishful thinking
14 July 2022

President Biden’s long-awaited and much-discussed three-day visit to Israel this week, en route to attend a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Saudi Arabia, serves to highlight both the magnitude and imminence of the threats facing the West, and the degree to which many (including, apparently the US Administration), are willing to believe that appeasement of terrorists has any chance of success. 
 
The first thing to note is the US support for the PLO, and its leader Mahmoud Abbas. While President Biden stated on his arrival that US support for Israel is deep and unwavering, and while the US and Israel announced this week a strategic alliance, Biden’s visit also signals US support for the PLO’s demands, and unwillingness to confront the PLO’s continuing violence based on its rejection of Israel’s right to exist. The US will provide over $500 million in aid to the Palestinian territories. Biden will visit a Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem,  and reportedly is planning to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Affairs Office at the US Embassy and place it under the direct supervision of the US State Department. That shows that Biden rejects Israel’s sovereignty over the city of Jerusalem, and is unwilling to confront Abbas’s ongoing payments to Palestinian terrorists for killing Jews (“pay-for-slay”). 
 
Next, there is the problem of Iran. Biden stated in an interview in Israel this week that “[t]he only thing worse than the Iran that exists now is an Iran with nuclear weapons and if we can return to the deal we can hold them tight. I think it was a gigantic mistake for the last president to get out of the deal.” Biden’s statement that a military option is not ruled out seems hardly credible, given that Iran is now capable of producing nuclear weapons. Moreover, as the US itself announced this week, it is well known that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) is deeply involved in supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Further, Iran, Russia and Turkey are boosting their alliance, which includes support for the Assad regime in Syria. According to the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to Tehran next Tuesday where he will attend a trilateral meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
 
In this context, it is hard to imagine that any “deal” with either Iran or the PLO is going to divert either of them from pursuing their declared aims of undermining and destroying Israel.  
 
As so often has been the case since Israel was established in 1948, most Western world leaders prefer to ignore, or downplay, the threats facing Israel, and persist in wishful thinking. Israel, however, cannot afford that luxury, as it is in the front lines of the battle. It has no choice but to face reality and do the hard work of actually confronting those who threaten its existence. 
 
One commentator has noted: “The U.S. president is coming to the Middle East because he is weak, so Israel should remember that it is strong.”
 
It might be more approriate to remark: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is strong, and He has promised to protect His people in the land, if they will trust in Him and look to Him for their salvation.  

Abraham Ben-Zvi writes at JNS: “The president’s primary destination is not Israel but Saudi Arabia.”

Battle for Jerusalem: Palestinians See Opportunity in Biden Visit
 

Ryan Jones at Israel Today writes: “Israelis worry that more minor gestures Biden might toss the Palestinians as proverbial table scraps in order to keep them appeased could deeply impact the future of Jerusalem.”

Eric R. Mandel writes in The Hill: “The Iranian leaders are intelligent and pragmatic, despite their ideological Islamist extremism and hatred for the Jewish state. They are fully aware that Israel would feel compelled to act when their nuclear weapons program crosses some line. But where is that line?”