On Hamas, Biden Chose Dishonor and Will Get War

On September 29, 1938, Winston Churchill rose in the House of Commons to challenge the mood of celebration that followed Neville Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler at Munich. Contrary to the Prime Minister’s proclamation that he had secured “peace in our time,” Churchill warned Chamberlain, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”

In the aftermath of Iran’s recent assault on Israel, the Biden administration has embraced this pathos, urging Israel to celebrate the lack of casualties beyond a Bedouin girl, an approach encapsulated by Joe Biden’s reported words to Bibi Netanyahu: “You got a win. Take the win.”

In Biden’s view, Israel should be grateful that this time, at least, Tehran’s effort to annihilate them proved largely symbolic. Hitler too merely symbolically reoccupied the Rhineland and was considerate enough to halt at the French border – in 1936. The French and British Ministers, so quick to congratulate themselves on avoiding an uncontrolled escalation that year, would eventually come to rue their decision to “take the win.”

Seven months after Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killing over 1,200 civilians, the Biden administration can credit itself with war as far as the eye can see in the Middle East, along with dishonor both at home and abroad. The administration’s success in bringing dishonor onto the United States is probably one of the only things that the TikTok-addled college students disrupting Biden’s events with charges of genocide and seasoned observers of international affairs from both parties can agree on.

In April 2024, the United States has managed the amazing feat of convincing hundreds of millions of people that it is complicit in a military campaign waged by an ally, while at the same time having done everything in its power to hamstring that ally and prevent a victory.

Israelis feel less safe, as do Jewish Americans who are forced to disguise their religion in public lest they face antisemitic attacks on a scale greater than when the KKK was at its height. Pro-Palestinian leftists feel unheard. Pro-American leaders in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East who stuck their necks out to support Washington after October 7 feel neglected, while groups like the Houthis feel empowered by Biden appearing eager to appease to them.

Make no mistake – the Biden administration’s new policy of appeasement toward Iran and calling for a cease-fire in Gaza will succeed neither in ending the violence against civilians nor in restoring the prestige of the United States. Everyone from the Israelis, to the Houthis, to Hamas, to the protestors terrorizing the homes of Jewish Americans will know that the Biden administration’s about-face comes under duress.

From October 7 onward, the Biden White House insisted that the futility of any ceasefire that left Hamas in control of Gaza would endanger Israel, the Palestinian people, and the entire globe. Now the Biden team has suddenly decided they need a cease-fire so badly they are willing to countenance one which meets none of their preconditions?

Diplomacy 101 is that in a war, the side that is winning is not the one that suddenly drops its key demands. As it is not Israel which is dropping its war aims, but the United States, the message is clear. Whether or not Israel has been defeated in this war, the United States has been, and the reward, as Churchill noted, for surrendering in dishonor will not be peace, but further war.

Let us begin with Hamas, the perpetrators of the October 7 atrocity, and therefore the authors of everything that followed. A ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact in Gaza will lead the group to believe its tactics worked, if not on the battlefield then in turning public opinion against Israel.

If the net result of the killing of Israeli civilians is for Israel to lose support, and for that loss of support to drive governments to abandon Israel, then why should Hamas not commit more atrocities to advance its position further? This is merely cold, hard logic.

Israel, in the view of Hamas, is dependent on American support, and for decades nothing succeeded in shaking that support until the domestic backlash among far-left Democrat voters after October 7. With that data point in hand, what else should Hamas do but aim for something even deadlier to provoke a similar response from Israel?

Hamas will hardly be the only actor preparing to escalate. The impotence of the United States in responding to Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping has shown both the vulnerability of global supply chains to Iranian proxies and the inability of the United States to secure the trade of its allies.

Iran now knows that it can disrupt Red Sea traffic at will, and it also knows that if Israel is unable to clear Hamas out of Gaza, it is highly unlikely to be willing to drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon if similarly armed with missiles, as it assuredly soon will be.

Most importantly, Iran knows that the United States under Joe Biden is so desperate to avoid direct conflict that it will even ignore the killing of American service members. That an Iranian regime that executes gays and unveiled women has been feted by young Americans with pride flags in their social media profiles indicates that, rather than producing a backlash, there is little reason for Tehran even to put on a show of pretending to tolerate “moderate” elements.

Now that the regime has gotten away with a strike against a sovereign American ally potentially unscathed, claims that the actions were performative miss the point. Of course they were. So too was Hitler’s move into the Rhineland. But that performance was used to reveal the impotence of the democratic powers, a demonstration that had real-world consequences throughout the world over the years to come as nations rushed to make their own accommodations with Hitler, having lost faith that Britain and France could protect them.

There is a reason Iran announced their attack in advance to every major global outlet, and it was not to avoid Israeli casualties.  It was to ensure that when Joe Biden did nothing and pressed Israel to do nothing, the entire world would be watching and taking notes.

Finally, the far-left pro-Palestinian elements in the United States now have, or believe they have, a roadmap to influence.

Over the past seven months, the United States has witnessed one of the most violent campaigns since the summer of 2020, targeting politicians, university employees, corporations, and even ordinary Jewish Americans. Leading universities such as Stanford were unable to hold Jewish religious events, while a Dean at Berkeley had a graduation meal at his own home disrupted solely on the basis that he was Jewish.

Left-wing circles, on campuses, podcasts, and TikTok, have been openly infiltrated by a different type of socialist, the national variety. Open Nazis who have praised Hitler have been platformed as they warn of conspiracy theories about “Zionist” doctors in a manner that mixes Goebbels with Stalin. 

These groups have been united in their belief, fostered during the George Floyd riots of 2020 and by the online echo chambers they borrowed into during extended lockdowns, that they are on the cusp of a violent revolution. Both Democrats and Republicans have been faced with the challenge of attempting to persuade elements within their coalitions that voting can work. For Joe Biden to surrender in the face of violent intimidation is a betrayal of every word he has ever said about “democracy,” as disingenuous as they always were. He has sent a clear message that violence works.

Just as Churchill warned Chamberlain that his capitulation at Munich would not even secure him “peace in our time” in exchange for dishonor, Joe Biden will earn not gratitude but contempt from those who have chased him from event to event with charges of “genocide.”

Having succeeded in defeating “Zionist influence” and forcing Joe Biden to cast himself as Kerensky, they will descend on the Democratic convention in Chicago this summer determined to channel Lenin. The Democrats were already set for a platform fight on Israel, and any chance of avoiding that conflict, and maybe even a literal fight around the convention hall, is now gone.

The pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party does not trust Biden’s conversion any more than it trusts its other elected officials. That is the reason pro-Hamas activists violently accosted AOC at a movie theater, demanding she repeat her words accusing Israel of genocide one more time. They will want to lock in their victory, and anything less than repeated pledges of adherence will not be enough.

Having learned that the way to get what they want is to threaten violence, it is all but certain this summer’s DNC Convention will rival 1968’s for chaos, except the ability to stream their criminal offenses will encourage the rioters to escalate in ways unthinkable to their predecessors. Biden, having surrendered dishonorably to Hamas, will receive no peace from Hamas’s violent supporters here in America.

While there might be justice in Joe Biden and the Democrats reaping the deserts of their dishonorable capitulation to Hamas, it is everyone else who will have to live with it. Munich cost Neville Chamberlain his reputation. It cost seventy million people their lives, and Britain its remaining empire. It cost the people of Eastern Europe and China their freedom.

Just as it was left to Churchill to clean up the mess, Biden is leaving a barren inheritance to his successor who cannot take office soon enough.

Walter Samuel is the pseudonym of a prolific international affairs writer and academic. He has worked in Washington as well as in London and Asia, and holds a Doctorate in International History.