Reports from Israel reveal that Iran is flooding the West Bank with weapons. While the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has capitulated to the misguided pressure put on Israel to pull back from the battle lines in Gaza, Iran is secretly arming Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank. Tehran is not timid about pursuing its aggression against Jerusalem and is doing everything it can to keep the battle raging. The Biden administration, in its institutional diffidence, won't take the fight to Iran and end its menacing militancy in the Middle East.
Threats Surround Israel
The IDF faces perilous threats that surround it. Having been forced by Biden's persistent harangues to disengage for the time being from its objective of destroying completely the terrorist organization Hamas, Israel is endangered by Iran’s arming of the West Bank jihadists. A recent dispatch from The New York Times explained:
"Iran is operating a clandestine smuggling route across the Middle East, employing intelligence operatives, militants and criminal gangs, to deliver weapons to Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to officials from the United States, Israel and Iran. The goal, as described by three Iranian officials, is to foment unrest against Israel by flooding the enclave with as many weapons as it can."
Sometimes, it becomes all too easy to see events in a conflict like that – started on Oct. 7 by Hamas' murderous attack on Israel – as a series of isolated incidents. But in Israel's experience, that is not the case. Every day, Israeli security forces are engaging Iran-supported Hezbollah terrorists on the southern Lebanese border, persistent skirmishes with Palestinian militias and independent terrorists in the West Bank, and continuing attacks by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as the Jewish state attempts to pause the fighting in Gaza.
Furthermore, according to the Institute for the Study of War’s Iran Update, April 9, 2024, "The Islamic Resistance in Iraq – a coalition of Iranian-backed Iraqi militias – claimed that it conducted five attacks into Israel using 'appropriate weapons' over the previous 72 hours." Meanwhile, the once unwavering and iron-clad support from the Biden administration is now wavering and more aluminum foil-clad than anything more solid.
In the category of it doesn't get any more ridiculous, a recent Associated Press news story reported, "Separately, US President Joe Biden called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza a mistake and called for his government to flood the beleaguered territory with aid, ramping up pressure on Israel to reach a ceasefire and widening a rift between the staunch allies." This sage advice comes from a fellow whose closest brush with anything resembling armed conflict was his failed leadership of the disastrous and deadly retreat from Afghanistan.
Netanyahu Seeks Total Victory
The sticking point for Biden and his foreign policy team is Israel's plan for offensive operations against the last remaining enclave of Hamas, the city of Rafah in south Gaza. Rafah is also a refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who migrated south to escape the fighting as the IDF moved through Gaza. The plight of the refugees is dire but unfortunately, a battalion or more of Hamas terrorists and other Palestinian militia fighters are among them in Rafah. "Netanyahu also said that the Israeli military aims to achieve 'total victory' over Hamas, which he said required an attack on Rafah, the last city in southern Gaza where Israel hasn't launched a full-scale assault," The Wall Street Journal explained.
Biden believes Israel must create an environment for drastically more aid to the Palestinian refugees in Gaza and has criticized the IDF for the large number of civilian casualties. However, Hamas and the Palestinian terrorist fighters have shown no inclination toward compliance with international law. Purposefully using innocent civilians as shields and holding hospitals with wounded patients as fortifications is integral to the death-cult combat tactics of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist militias. Israeli forces do not intentionally target civilian non-combatants.
Regardless of US criticism of the way IDF is prosecuting the war against Hamas terrorists bent on eliminating Israel, the Israeli government must continue the fight. The Biden administration's insistence on an extended ceasefire will only allow more Iranian weapons and other support to flow to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, hastening the reconstitution of the Hamas organization. This approach is consistent with the Biden administration's reluctance to engage Iran directly. Wherever conflict exists in the Middle East, when one turns over a rock, Iran crawls out. Biden has shown no appetite for holding Tehran accountable.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliate.
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