Friday, February 9, 2024

Israel's American frenemy. From Carter through Obama, there is this yellow streak in Democrat character

 Melanie Phillips

 One consequence of that feebleness was last month's drone attack by Iranian proxies in Jordan, which killed three U.S. service members and injured more than 40. America's strikes in response to that attack have mostly been laughable, with copious warnings ensuring that they largely hit only empty camps.


"Astonishingly, Israel has to fight right now to defend its existence not just against a line-up of mortal foes doing the bidding of Iran but also against the Jewish state's most important ally, America.

"U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who came to Israel this week to bully it into a ceasefire in Gaza, preposterously demanded a one-to-one private meeting with the Israel Defense Forces' Chief of the General Staff, Herzi Halevi.

"At the meeting that took place instead with the war cabinet, Blinken was reportedly put out when Halevi said the war would continue for months because of the challenge mounted by the vast extent of Hamas's underground military infrastructure.

"Put out, that is, by Israel's refusal to leave itself once again at the mercy of Hamas's genocidal agenda.

"Blinken then publicly bared America's teeth. Although in his remarks alongside Israeli President Isaac Herzog, he was careful to say that he appreciated Israel's emphasis on protecting civilians and providing humanitarian assistance, he gave vent at a press conference to accusations that echoed the malevolent demonization of Israel around the world.

"He declared "the daily toll that [Israel's] military operations continue to take on innocent civilians remains too high"; urged Israel "to do more to help civilians"; and said although Israelis had been dehumanized, "that cannot be a license to dehumanize others. The overwhelming majority of people in Gaza had nothing to do with the attacks of Oct. 7."

"This was all breathtakingly malign. Since the ratio of civilians to terrorists killed in Gaza is running at around two or three civilians to one terrorist — far lower than the proportion of civilians killed in U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan — on what conceivable basis is the number of Gaza civilian casualties "too high"?" . . .

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