[guest post by JVW]

It would seem that every seven or so years we need to do a new variation on the headline above.

Vacuous Vice-President Kamala Harris showed up at a rostrum in Dubai yesterday on Saturday and embarrassed our nation and herself in much the same way that another fellow sugar baby did at the United Nations in the waning days of the Obama Administration. Visiting the repressive, authoritarian United Arab Emirates ostensibly for one of those climate change confabs where everyone furrows their brows at the risks posed by mowing your lawn or eating a hamburger, the Biden Administration’s number two officer (whose senile boss consistently confuses her for the head honcho) followed up Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s shameful dismissal of Israel’s resolve to eradicate Hamas by unleashing her toxic brew of frivolousness and cluelessness:

In remarks in the United Arab Emirates after meetings with leaders of the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, and the Hamas-sponsoring Iranian ally Qatar, Harris delivered a version of the same message. It was rooted in the same failed Obama-era strategy of trying to show “daylight” with Israel in the groundless hope that it will earn more trust in the Arab world. She reiterated the administration’s “steadfast conviction” that “Israel has a right to defend itself” but then insisted, “Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.”

[. . .]

Harris said, “We cannot conflate Hamas with the Palestinian people.” As a matter of the laws of war, this is a truism; as a statement about public sentiment among Palestinians, it is an absurdity. On October 7, Palestinians were seen taking to the streets to celebrate the attacks. When a dead Israeli was dragged out from a car in Gaza, a crowd started stomping on his dead body; elsewhere, a crowd cheered as Hamas terrorists paraded a semi-naked dead female body through the streets of Gaza (who we now know to be the murdered German-Israeli Shani Louk). Polling also supports the idea that the scenes were representative of the prevailing sentiment among the population. Three-quarters of Palestinians approved of the October 7 attacks, according to a November poll from the Arab World for Research and Development.

There can be no doubt that there are Palestinians living in Gaza, on the West Bank, and elsewhere in the region and aborad who loathe Hamas and yearn to be free from its evil clutches and baneful influence on life in the Arab World. There can also be no doubt that there are plenty of Palestinians who have been indoctrinated in the radical Jew-hatred and grievance-mongering — so prevalent in the Arab world and among leftist Third Worldists — who would be happy to join Hamas in attacking, kidnapping, raping, and murdering not only Israeli Jewish civilians, but anybody else they believe sympathizes with them. Does anybody seriously believe that a significant subset of the thousands of repellent and brain-dead college kids along with other assorted riff-raff in Western cities marching in solidarity with Hamas (or, perhaps more accurately, in virulent opposition to a Jewish presence in the Holy Land) wouldn’t also join their brethren in persecuting Jews here and abroad by legal and extralegal means if given the opportunity?

Note too how the Biden Administration wants to tell us ad nauseam that “Israel has the right to defend itself.” That seems to be a half-clever trope designed to evade the real question of exactly what Israel is allowed to do. Does Israel’s right to defend itself end once they have driven invaders from their borders, or does it encompass the pursuit and eradication of their enemies in other lands? The Vice President seems to acknowledge that an Israeli incursion into Gaza is legit, yet the administration in which she serves wants to put so many conditions on what Israeli forces can target and how they must conduct their campaign that the overall effect is to neuter their ability to meet their objective.

Vice-President Harris also sketched out what she termed “five principles [which] guide [the Biden Administration’s] approach to a post-conflict Gaza”:

[. . . ] no forcible displacement, no reoccupation, no siege or blockade, no reduction in territory, and no use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism. We want to see a unified Gaza and West Bank under the Palestinian authority, and Palestinian voices and aspirations must be at the center of this work.

We see that the first four of these are pretty much restrictions upon what Israel can impose, though the part about no forcible displacement would seem to rule out requiring Israel to dismantle its settlements on the West Bank. Of course this is exactly the sort of thing that we would expect the Biden Administration to renege upon if they think that Respectable World Opinion does in fact demand those settlements be removed. And note here the dog that didn’t bark: the Vice-President stopped short of insisting that Hamas not be part of a future Palestinian government (though she did declare that the hopelessly corrupt Palestinian Authority needs to be running the show), suggesting that Israel does not have the obligation or even the right to conquer its enemy, an enemy who has consistently shown that they will not abide by peace treaties or accept a Jewish state in the region. Though she followed-up later in the speech by stating that “Hamas cannot [be allowed to] control Gaza,” she stopped well short of Hillary Clinton’s recent declaration that “Hamas must go.”

We’re often told that in their heart of hearts, the Arab leaders would be happy if Israel would wipe out Hamas, who they see as a destabilizer of the region, impacting their ability to continue to build obscene wealth. Yet at the same time these same Arab leaders know that the anti-Israel indoctrination has seeped so deeply into their people that peace in the region would cause the masses to turn their attention to the hereditary rule of Arab oligarchs, and they all remember what happened to King Farouk sixty years ago. So, for the time being, better for them to have “the Arab Street” (remember that from two decades ago?) united against Israel than casting their eye on the gilded palaces and luxurious urban high-rises. The Biden Administration is alas willing to pander to that cynicism.

The NRO piece points out that a poll taken in Gaza last month revealed that nine out of ten Palestinians claim to hold a negative view of the Palestinian Authority, the political entity headed by Mahmoud Abbas which is supposed to represent the interests of a peaceful Palestinian state, and three out of four of them support a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” while a mere one in six support a two-state solution. Even given the the disclaimers on the unreliability of polling, this does not seem to indicate that the Palestinian people are partners in peace, Hamas or no Hamas.

So, Mister President, Madam Vice-President, Mister Secretary, and the rest of you liars, knaves, and fools: shut your damn mouths, stop fawning over those revolting petro-kleptocracies, divest yourself of the illusion that peace is possible while Hamas and Hezbollah wield any sort of destructive influence in the region, and allow Israel to do what it takes to ensure the survival of their nation and its people.

– JVW