As war fever grows, Biden blinks again. This is not the first time he’s blinked and backed away from a confrontation he created himself. Read on to find out more. 

Based on an article in the Algeimeiner Journal
and other recent news reports, collated by Lasha Darkmoon with commentary.
April 17, 2021

“Little more than two months after his inauguration, President Joe Biden is already competing to become the worst president toward Israel.” — Jewish American historian Jerold Auerbach

LD: (brief introduction) This abridged article by Jerold Auerbach in the Algeimeiner Journal, an aggressively pro-Israel online newspaper cobbled together by American  Jews to promote Zionist interests and justify Israel’s war crimes, will disgust the average reader here.  It certainly disgusts me.

It gives me the creeps  by its arrogant assumption that Israel has never committed any war crimes. That Jewish settlers have a right to occupy Palestinian land, referred to here by their Biblical names  of “Judea” and “Samaria”. And that the badly treated Palestinians are entirely to blame for any failure to make peace  with Israel—”the only democracy in the Middle East and the most moral nation on earth.” 

The article, however tendentious,  will nevertheless please the average anti-Zionist  who has no time for Israel and its appalling catalogue of crimes, going back to the foundation of the Jewish state in 1948.  This is because of the article’s surprise revelation that Joe Biden, far from backing Israel to the hilt like his predecessor Donald Trump,  is striking out in the opposite direction.

Quelle horreur!  Biden is actually demanding fair treatment for the Palestinians!  Unbelievable. He even went so far as refer to the West Bank recently as “occupied” territory. To most Israelis, this is a blow beneath the belt.     

Biden’s unfriendly attitude, it seems, is beginning to give Israel the jitters. 

This article, incidentally, is not exclusively about Israel. It includes an update at the end, added by myself, about the current crisis in Ukraine where war fears rage.  [LD]

DONALD  TRUMP,  ISRAEL’S  BEST  FRIEND,
after handing Benjamin Netanyahu the keys to the White House 

By JEROLD AUERBACH

(abridged)

Donald Trump was indisputably the best presidential friend of Israel since 1948, when Harry S. Truman recognized the fledgling Jewish state moments after its Declaration of Independence.

Trump’s gifts to Israel included transfer of the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in recognition of the ancient Jewish city as the capitol of the Jewish state; and acknowledgment of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, vital to Israel’s northern security. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo authorized a passport rule change to permit Americans born in Jerusalem to identify Israel as their birthplace. He also rescinded a State Department memorandum (1978) that settlements are inconsistent with international law.

Little more than two months after his inauguration, President Joe Biden is already competing to become the worst president toward Israel.

He might even surpass his revered presidential mentor Barack Obama, whose antagonism toward Israel was one of the distinguishing features of his presidency.

Understandably, a public opinion poll in 2016 reported that 63% of Israelis thought that Obama was the worst president for Israel since 1986. His closest rival for that dubious honor was Jimmy Carter at 16%.

President Biden seems eager to join them, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken as his messenger.

It began in early April when Blinken told Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi of the Biden administration’s belief that both “Israelis and Palestinians should enjoy equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and democracy.”

It is a fanciful hope.

Freedom and democracy have never been priorities for the Palestinian Authority. Biden has expressed his farfetched belief that Israel’s control over the West Bank—biblical Judea and Samaria—is “occupation.”

As the Biden decision to undo Trump administration support for Israel accelerated, Blinken announced plans to resume American funding for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Administration dedicated to preserving the fiction that five million Palestinian “refugees” are entitled to financial support. The refugees’ children, grandchildren, and their descendants unto eternity all qualify as “refugees.”

It’s  a scam.

LD: Note the hypocrisy here. The author resents any small financial assistance offered to the oppressed Palestinians, driven out of their own country by the Jews in 1948 and cruelly massacred in large numbers at Deir Yassin, but makes no mention of the generous American stipend offered to Israel every year, amounting to $3.8 billion and more.

Nor is there any mention of the staggering number of Holocaust survivors still receiving financial reparations 75 years after WWII.

Recollect what Norman Finkelstein’s mother said to Finkelstein, famous author of The Holocaust Industry: “If there are so many Holocaust survivors, who actually died?”   

Under Blinken’s leadership the State Department continues to identify biblical Judea and Samaria—formerly Jordan’s West Bank—as “occupied” territory.

On a parallel track, with potentially worrisome consequences for Israel, Robert Malley, lead negotiator for the flawed Obama administration nuclear deal with Iran, has been appointed to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.  For Biden, anyone who worked for Obama is deserving of praise and rewarded with an administration appointment. Malley’s assertion that Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians must include Hamas is not a deterrent. It may even be a requirement.

Then there is the Taylor Force Act (2017)—signed into law by President Trump—that authorizes Congress to halt financial aid to the Palestinian Authority until it stops payment of stipends to terrorists and the families of deceased terrorists. Shortly after Biden’s election, his foreign policy team disregarded the Taylor Force Act, announcing their intention to renew $125 million in funding to the Palestinian Authority.

President Biden is following a path to become the Palestinian Authority’s best presidential friend and, it follows, Israel’s least supportive president.

No surprise: there is a Biden precedent.

Forty years ago, in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Biden pontificated to Prime Minister Menachem Begin about the illegality of settlements, warning that American aid would be jeopardized if Israel did not change course.

Begin sharply responded: “Don’t threaten us with cutting off aid to give up our principles,” adding: “I’m not a Jew with trembling knees.” It was Biden, with trembling knees, who backed down.

President Biden should be wary. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like Begin, favors the return of Jews to their biblical homeland. Nor do his knees tremble.

The Algeimeiner Journal 

UPDATE ON THE UKRAINE CRISIS

by Lasha Darkmoon

One has to feel sorry for Biden.  Backing down “with trembling knees” before world leaders who stand up to him is something that could become a bad habit with him. 

The latest news reports from the high-tension Black Sea area around Ukraine reveal that Biden has been quick to bluster and threaten violence against Russia but has been the first to blink. We learned yesterday  that Biden, having ordered two American warships to race to the Black Sea to carry out a rescue operation, chickened out at the last moment and reversed his orders when Putin told him to clear off or expect trouble.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov added belligerently:

“There is absolutely nothing for American ships to be doing near our shores, this is purely a provocative action. Provocative in the direct sense of the word: they are testing our strength, playing on our nerves. They will not succeed. We warn the United States that it will be better for them to stay far away from Crimea and our Black Sea coast. It will be for their own good.

— Ukraine-Russia crisis: as Moscow issues threats, Joe Biden blinks first

The Daily Mail  spells it out in more detail:

Joe Biden appeared to blink first in his confrontation with Vladimir Putin over Ukraine by turning around two US warships bound for Russia’s coast.

The US Donald Cook and USS Roosevelt, armed with state-of-the-art guided missiles and torpedoes, had been destined to launch patrols of the Black Sea to deter a Russian invasion of its neighbour.

But the destroyers, which were due to arrive any day, have received fresh orders to steer clear of the region—leaving the White House open to claims it backed down in the face of Kremlin intimidation. 

— The Daily Mail, Biden blinks first over Ukraine crisis, p. 12

This is not inspiring news.

What we have here, it seems, is a lame duck president who has made threatening noises against both Israel and Russia and failed to stand his ground on both occasions.

Where it will end is anyone’s guess.

 

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