Published March 15, 2024
President Joe Biden’s recent foreign policy moves are baffling. By any rational standard, they are undermining Israel and helping Hamas.
When Biden was caught on an open microphone following his State of the Union Address telling Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado that Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were “going to have a come to Jesus meeting,” you have to wonder what he’s thinking.
It was a weird comment for two reasons. First, it is unlikely the leader of the Jewish state will have a “come to Jesus moment.” (Maybe a come to Moses or Abraham moment – but not a come to Jesus moment.) I have known Netanyahu since the 1980s. I am confident he was amused rather than intimidated by Biden’s comment.
Second, the American President cannot dictate to the Prime Minister of Israel. Israel is a sovereign country. Furthermore, its entire history has been a series of heroic victories in which it had to rely on its own courage and ingenuity to provide for its peoples’ security. The United States has historically been an ally of Israel (although in Suez Crisis of 1956, we intervened decisively against an Israeli victory). But the United States can only advise – it cannot dictate.
President Biden grandly announced that an Israeli occupation of the city of Rafah would cross a red line. Of course, we remember President Barack Obama’s famous red line about the Syrian use of chemical weapons, which disappeared the minute Syria used the chemical weapons.
Netanyahu responded clearly to Biden’s threat. He told Politico’s parent company, Axel Springer, “We’ll go there. We’re not going to leave… You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is, that Oct. 7 doesn’t happen again.”
