America is unjustly calling on its close ally Israel to exercise restraint.
Amid Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s launching of more than 1,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel, the Biden administration seems to have forgotten who is to blame for this crisis. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken observed that “the most important thing right now is exactly what we’re doing, which is to be engaged across the board and pushing on deescalation.”
Blinken acknowledged that “there is a very clear, absolute distinction between the terrorist organization Hamas that is indiscriminately raining down rockets targeting civilians and Israel’s response defending itself targeting the terrorists.” But, he added, “Israel has an extra burden in trying to do everything it possibly can to avoid civilian casualties, even as it is rightfully responding in defense of its people.”
This rhetoric is moral and strategic detritus.
Israel, under nonstop rocket fire, has every right to defend itself. Its government should not be asked to deescalate. By charter and by action, Hamas seeks the annihilation of the Jewish state. Antisemitism is imbued in its ideology and ambition. To ask the Jewish state to act in ignorance of these facts is fundamentally unserious. More than that, it is wrong.
Yes, civilian casualties should be avoided wherever possible. Unfortunately, in war, civilians die. This is a truth as old as war itself. And very few militaries take precautions as great as the Israeli Defense Forces to mitigate the risks to civilians. To achieve its security interests, Israel needs to destroy the terrorists’ capabilities and reestablish deterrence against them.
The Biden administration’s poor choices go beyond its misguided call for restraint. The administration recently restored funding to the Palestinians, who have responded by reminding us that they have little interest in a durable peace.
Under President Donald Trump, the United States unequivocally supported Israel’s right to defend itself. In doing so, Trump put the onus on Hamas and the Palestinians to suspend the use of violence against civilians. That’s the correct approach. If Mexico or Canada was launching rockets into American population centers, we would rightly view those acts as intolerable. We would respond to eliminate the threat. Would the Biden administration want its closest allies to instead call on Washington to exercise restraint?
Highly unlikely.
The media have dishonestly framed headlines to portray Israel, not Hamas, as the instigator of this violence. But that doesn’t mean Biden should abandon our ally. As Biden frequently makes clear in his engagements with European and Asian allies, America has an obligation to stand with its friends. The latest violence in Israel and Gaza should be no different.
Jackson Richman is a journalist in Washington, D.C. Follow him @jacksonrichman.
