In recent days, Biden administration officials have repeatedly warned Israel to “de-escalate” its actions against Palestinian Arab terrorists because Ramadan has begun. According to U.S. officials, Israel should stop pursuing terrorists into Palestinian Authority territory in the weeks ahead, because Israelis should not be killing Muslims during this month-long Muslim religious holiday.
But how did the Biden administration mark the start of Ramadan this past week? By killing Muslims.
Last Thursday—the first full day of Ramadan—a strike by an Iranian drone in northeast Syria killed an American contractor and wounded six other Americans.
In view of the administration’s concern about Muslim religious sensibilities, you might think that it would have refrained from any military response.
After all, just the previous day, Biden’s deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, summoned the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Michael Herzog, to demand that Israel “refrain from actions or rhetoric that could further inflame tensions leading into Ramadan, Passover, and Easter.”
And later that day, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel demanded that Israel stop being “provocative” and act “to restore some measures of calm as we head into Ramadan, Passover, and Easter.”
So surely, the Biden administration would not itself carry out a policy that it had just warned Israel to refrain from undertaking.
As it turns out, all of the Biden administration’s professed concern about not “inflaming tensions” or being “provocative” during Ramadan apparently applies only to Israel, not to the United States.
Because within hours of that Iranian attack in northeast Syria, President Biden sent F-15E fighter jets to attack Iranian-allied targets in the region. Even though it was Ramadan. And eight Muslim terrorists were killed by those American bombs.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained: “As President Biden has made clear, we will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. No group will strike our troops with impunity.”
That’s right—the same Secretary Austin who visited Israel earlier this month, and at a press conference in Jerusalem on March 9 went out of his way to scold Israel about pursuing Muslim terrorists.
“Now we’re meeting today a time of tension,” Austin said. “So, we had a very frank and candid discussion among friends about the need to de-escalate, to lower tensions and to restore calm, especially before the holidays of Passover and Ramadan.”
Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Israeli citizens are directly under attack, every day, by Muslim terrorists who then flee into Palestinian Authority-controlled cities. And the Biden administration is demanding that Israel stop chasing them because of Ramadan.
By contrast, American citizens are not under direct attack every day by Iranians. But thousands of miles away from the United States, in Syria, a small number of American soldiers and contractors are occasionally attacked by the Iranians. Yet the Biden administration says it’s fine for the U.S. to bomb and kill Iranian Muslims in Syria—eight of them in that one strike on Friday.
America’s political leaders sometimes seem to forget that the United States and Israel are fighting the same war, on two fronts. Sometimes the Jihadist terrorists attack Americans in Syria; sometimes they attack Israelis in Samaria. Both the U.S. and Israel have no choice to respond, whether during Ramadan or anywhere else. Because it’s a struggle for survival.
I think it would be interesting if, after every upcoming Israeli action against Muslim terrorists, the Israeli Army spokesman would publicly thank Defense Secretary Austin, and President Biden, for clarifying the principle that guides Israel and America in fighting terrorism.
Imagine if the Israeli spokesman would then quote Austin’s words, “We will take all necessary measures to defend our people and will always respond at a time and place of our choosing. No group will strike out troops with impunity.”
And if any Muslim terrorists were killed by Israeli soldiers that day, the Israeli Army spokesman might mention the U.S. killing of those eight Muslim terrorists during Ramadan. I wonder how the State Department would respond to that!
Stephen M. Flatow is an attorney and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. He is author of “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror.”