Gary Willig is on the Arutz Sheva news staff.
The other shoe has finally dropped.
We knew it was coming for months. Once US President Joe Biden began opposing any IDF action in Rafah and shifted from supporting the defeat of Hamas and the return of all of the hostages to pursuing a ceasefire above all else, it was only a matter of when his nerve would finally fail completely.
His threat in an interview with CNN last week to cut off arms supplies to Israel should it press in to Rafah is nothing sort of a craven betrayal, made all the worse by the fact that it came a day after Biden said at a Holocaust Remembrance Day event that people were forgetting the atrocities Hamas committed on October 7.
With this betrayal, Biden has proven once and for all that he is no leader, the quality that is the most crucial for a president.
With his campaign spooked by polls showing former President Donald Trump neck and neck with or even leading Biden in this year’s presidential race, the decision was made to attempt to appease the most rabid antisemites in the fringes of the Democratic Party’s base in the hopes of maintaining the Muslim vote in Michigan and the youth vote nationwide.
If this meant throwing Israel to the Hamas and Iranian wolves, guaranteeing another October 7 in the coming years, and giving a tailwind to the forces making life increasingly unsafe for Jews in the US, then all of this is a necessary sacrifice to keep Trump out of the White House and Biden in the Oval Office.
Biden’s shortsighted, foolish decision will only make things worse, not only in the Middle East, but in America as well.
Not only will Hamas be emboldened to keep its hostages and continue the war to the bitter end, secure in the knowledge that the leader of the most powerful nation in the world is working to secure its survival, but the antisemites who have made college campuses a hell on earth for Jewish students over the last month and celebrated the October 7 massacre in the immediate aftermath will also be emboldened to continue their campaign to turn all Jews except for the small handful of IfNotNow extremists into pariahs banned from American life.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a member of the far-left ‘Squad’ who has claimed that the rapes Hamas terrorists committed on October 7 were “lies,” made this explicit when he wrote on X: “Organizing is working. Protesting is working. Keep fighting for a #CeasefireNow."
Why shouldn’t anti-Israel activists continue to target synagogues in Teaneck, call for 10,000 October 7s, assault Jewish students, desecrate World War One memorials, burn American flags, and chant “Death to America” if the President of the United States constantly attempts to appease them and signals that he is on their side?
America became a more dangerous place to be a Jew on May 8, the day Biden showed he has no spine.
It did not have to be this way. Biden could have stood up to or simply ignored the extremists from the start.
-He could have consistently demanded that Hamas unconditionally surrender and rallied the free world around that completely reasonable demand.
-He could have made the five American citizens still held hostage in Gaza his main priority instead of avoiding even saying their names.
-He could have condemned antisemitism without constantly adding references to the comparatively minor problem of Islamophobia, in effect “all lives mattering” a genocidal hatred.
-He could have put what’s right over what seemed politically convenient.
Instead, he behaved like a coward.
Biden’s cowardice is legitimizing the terrorist strategy of human shields. It is legitimizing the horrors of October 7 by allowing Hamas to get away with it. It is legitimizing the calls for genocide against the Jewish people.
The ramifications of this cowardice and betrayal extend beyond the State of Israel and the American Jewish community. All American allies must now face a reality in which they could suffer because of America’s weakness, in which it is truly better to be one of America’s enemies than to be its friend. Ukraine, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, and more will have to come to terms with the fact that if the US can betray Israel, it can betray anyone.
Biden will likely pay a steep political price for his weakness. The American people still overwhelmingly support Israel over Hamas, and the electorate cannot abide a weak leader with no spine.
Another so-called leader who must be called out is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). As a man who likes to connect his last name to the Hebrew word “Shomer,” meaning “guardian,” Schumer has been a complete and utter failure.
After his shocking speech in March in which he called for regime change in Israel, Schumer failed to seize the chance to atone by doing the right thing and standing up to the President and calling out his betrayal of Israel and basic human decency.
“I have faith in what the Biden Administration is doing,” was all Schumer could say after Biden upended the US-Israel relationship and sided with genocidal terrorists over those they would murder.
What we have here is a so-called “guardian” who refuses to guard Israel, refuses to guard American Jews, and refuses to guard America. Who is Schumer guarding, besides Hamas and the “Death to Israel, Death to America” mobs?
Schumer’s betrayal and cowardice is even more inexplicable than Biden’s. Biden at least has the excuse that he fears losing an election this year. Schumer is not up for reelection until 2028. So why is he cowering while his party is being hijacked by people who want to facilitate a genocide against his people?
The mantles of leadership and guardianship have been filled elsewhere. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) have emerged as the unlikely voices of reason and humanity in the Democratic Party and the hope of a Democratic Party free from the scourge of antisemitism. They have braved the abuse of the people Biden has cravenly pandered to. Third-Party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has also vowed to support Israel even at a political cost to himself, because it is the right thing to do.
Trump likewise said at a campaign rally on Saturday that he doesn’t care “if it’s good or bad politically” to support Israel, he will do it.
Whatever Trump’s personal faults, and they are many, that is indeed the right message to send to those who set up tent encampments on college campuses and block major bridges and airports in support of Hamas, that you refuse to be intimidated by those who use intimidation as their primary means of expressing themselves, that you will do what’s right even if it means potentially losing an election.
Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer may have been elected to leadership positions, but they are no leaders. They are cowards.