Joe Biden Keeps Rewarding the Terrorists

Peace is for suckers.

Even as Israelis were rooting out the barbaric child murderers and rapists of Hamas, President Joe Biden was trying to bully the Jewish state into repaying the Palestinians with a new state. Now, the State Department is reportedly fast-tracking recognition of an “independent” Arab state, which not only promises to envelop Israel in a three-front terror fight but also pull the United States into a needless quagmire.

Then again, for Biden, rewarding terrorists is a matter of policy. If this administration, for instance, had explicitly promised to help Iran enhance its position in the Middle East, what would it have done differently?

Only a few days after the inauguration, Biden brought back special envoy Rob Malley to spearhead negotiations with the Islamic State. Now, there are many problems with Malley, but the biggest one is that he negotiates for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rather than the U.S.

Iran has spent decades kidnapping and murdering Americans. So, a month after Malley’s hiring, the Biden administration took Iranian proxies, the Houthis, off the State Department foreign terror designation list.

Then, as Barack Obama did, Biden released billions to strengthen the deteriorating terror regime and its revolutionary guard. It wasn’t just ransom. Iranians, supposedly under U.S. and EU sanctions, were able to boost oil production to a five-year high last year — which amounts to an extra $10 billion.

All this did was incentivize Iran to further destabilize the region. Iranian proxies have attacked American troops at least 151 times during the Biden years. Last week, three U.S. soldiers were murdered by the regime. Add those lives to the over 600 servicemen murdered by Iran over the past 20 years.

The White House spent the week propping up the president and incessantly discussing how we were going to respond. At the same time, they stressed we “don’t want war” with Iran. Of course, we don’t want war. We also don’t need to sound like a pathetic, middling power. But I don’t care if you’re a neocon, an isolationist or anything in between; there needs to be repercussions for murdering Americans. Tehran should be terrified of what comes next. I doubt they are.

And while Biden was boosting Iran’s fortunes, he was also empowering their allies in Hamas.

Donald Trump bypassed the intractable Palestinians, giving Israel space to make peace with most of the Sunni Arab world. Iran was increasingly isolated and weakened. The first thing the Biden administration did was place Palestinians at the center of Middle East policymaking.

Biden overturned Trump-era policy, releasing hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and the Palestinians. At the time, Antony Blinken claimed it was critical for “Israeli-Palestinian understanding, security coordination and stability.” Really, he might as well have written some checks directly out to Hamas.

United Nations employees in Gaza, whom Washington had long known were actively assisting the terror group, directly participated in killing Jews on Oct. 7 — including, people often seem to forget, 30 U.S. citizens. At least half of the U.N. staff in Gaza is attached to organizations designated terrorists by the United States government.

Indeed, any “independent” Palestinian territory is going to be a terror state. History is remarkably clear on this point. Even the Palestine Liberation Organization, propped up by Western aid and Israeli security in the “West Bank,” hasn’t been able to hold a real election in over a decade because Islamists would inevitably take control.

If Israel can’t stop weapons from infiltrating Gaza now, what does the situation look like when it is dealing with an “independent” state? What does it look like when Iran becomes a nuclear power? What does it look like when the Islamic Jihad — or whatever group pops up to take its place — begins lobbing rockets at civilians? Israel will be compelled to act. Next time, it would be invading a territory recognized as a sovereign state by the U.S.

To allay these fears, the State Department promises it will only move forward “with real security guarantees for Israel.”

We are in no position to offer security assurances to Israel. We can’t even close our own borders. The Biden administration, in fact, already opposes the creation of a security buffer zone within Gaza to prevent more attacks.

Now, there are those, like the president, who maintain that the people of Gaza aren’t responsible for the actions of Hamas, even though most polls find overwhelming support for violent Islamic fundamentalism. Fine. If that’s really the case, there should be no problem asking the Palestinians to take the next five to 10 years to build a civilization that proves it can live peacefully with its neighbors — like hundreds of other ethnic minorities in the world who don’t have the benefit of the world’s attention.

Then again, maybe if they all started blowing up Jews, the West would propose giving them a state, as well.

David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books — the most recent, “Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent.” His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter @davidharsanyi.

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