According to the front page of the New York Times, President Biden is taking the trip this week “to show unwavering support for Israel — after what officials say was the deadliest day in its history — and to speak with the country’s leaders about several urgent issues, including hostages held by Hamas and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.” The Times calls it “a remarkable gamble,” but one should gamble, if at all, only when the potential reward is somewhere close to the anticipated risks, and sufficiently beneficial. There is no rational calculation that makes this absurdly risky journey a justifiable gamble by that definition. The President of the United States is risking the stability and welfare of the nation he was elected to lead to “show support”? Joe Biden can show sufficient support for Israel from the safety of a padded room at the White House.
The trip can only be explained as a Barn Door Fallacy operation, like the reported temporary retraction of the unfrozen Iranian funds that may well have given Iran the encouragement it needed to back the deadly Hamas attack. The President is grandstanding to avoid Democratic Party accountability after that botch before the attack, and for the disgusting, “let’s look at the context,” pro-terrorism and anti-Semitic response of so many Democratic supporters after it, notably on college campuses. It is a purely political move, and not even a smart one even from that cynical perspective.
Making the visit as futile as it is reckless is the undeniable fact that the Israeli government is not going to back away from its pledge to crush Hamas, with all the carnage in Gaza that objective implies. So Joe is putting himself in harm’s way, risking the horror of a Kamala Harris Presidency, to be able to tell Donald Trump that “at least he tried” in the debates? Oh, good plan.
Moron.
President Bush’s surprise 2003 Thanksgiving appearance in Iraq was also irresponsible grandstanding, but at least he was showing symbolic support for the U.S. troops he sent into harm’s way. Biden has no such justification for taking this risk. All I can conclude is that the internal polling at the White House regarding Joe’s popularity is so bad that Biden aides decided to appeal to his macho fantasies and convince our addled POTUS that the trip makes sense. And at least Bush didn’t announce the trip in advance, as Biden has. Brilliant.
The Israeli visit shows warped values, priorities and logic at the very top of our government. I would say that at least it’s useful information, but we already knew that about Joe and his party.
Ethics Alarms 
My worry with the President’s travel to Israel is his reasoning/deal will to bring as many of those from Palestine/Gaza to the States.
Warning: conspiracy theory!
Maybe Joe’s handlers are facing such bleak outcomes in 2024, and Joe’s decline is so precipitous, that they convinced him to risk going out a martyr. He doesn’t have to face the impeachment inquiry or have all his dirty laundry aired for the world to see, his family gets some protection, he gets his name broadcast to the heavens as a hero, and he paves the way for the first woman president, and he doesn’t have to suffer his brain melting away any longer.
Yeah, that is what I was wondering. The Democratic Party is facing bleak prospects right now. They can’t ditch Biden because they have no good alternative. Their prosecution of Trump keeps getting more totalitarian by the day and it is backfiring (as I understand it, the judge used a precedent that prosecutors can’t collude with the press to attack a defendant as a rationale to keep Trump from complaining that the prosecutor was colluding with the press against him). Harris for President isn’t going to be any better against Trump. Newsom thinks he can win, but would alienate the only people who would support Harris. If Biden gets killed (by either side) in Israel, they can rally the Democratic base around his ‘memory’ to elect anyone they want, maybe Hillary!
The Administration is using a trip to Israel to prop up the President and make him out to be something other than the Mobile Mannequin that he is…no doubt about that. But I don’t believe for one minute that the President or the Administration has any real interest in supporting Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu, or the Jewish people.
I’m convinced that the President’s prime objective here is to either 1) convince the Israeli government to back off in dealing with the terrorist groups and accept a ceasefire, or 2) put the President in the midst of the fire, knowing it’s unlikely Israel launches an offensive while he’s there. In other words, the President is just going to Israel to hinder Israel.
Stupidest thing I’ve EVER heard of.
I think Biden’s main goal is to convince Israel to limit their response, let’s say, get the hostages back and call it a day. Of course, I don’t think Israel can do that, without inviting more terrorist provocation. Hamas would get off too easy, if that was it.
Also, I have low expectations of Biden showing up to debate Trump, if Trump is the guy. Biden will say, he doesn’t debate insurrectionists, and also he is X points ahead in the polls, because I am sure the publicly available polls will favor Biden, even if ever so slightly. If he does debate, then he can pull a Fetterman, and schedule the debate 5 minutes before election day. Biden will still have a lot of the votes he needs already mailed in the election month before the actual election day.
I’ve compared the current president to President Carter several times. Actually, I think he is less confident than Jimmy Carter, and, given all that I said when Carter said he was going into hospice, that is saying something coming from me. Carter thought he was going to bring Egypt and Israel and the PLO together at Camp David and finally hammer out the peace no one could for 30 years. He accomplished no such thing. If Biden thinks he is going to go in there and say exactly the right words to make peace break out, he is kidding himself. More likely, his handlers are kidding themselves and kidding him. He has never been a great diplomat. He is certainly no George Mitchell.
Honestly, at this point Israel has moved beyond peace conferences and diplomacy. They are calling up every reservist they can get, they are mobilizing every plane they can put in the air, and they are sending in every ship that can leave the dock. In case you didn’t know, Israeli warships may be small, but they pack more punch per ton than any other ship in the world. They have also formed a wartime unity government. The nation is united for war, and that isn’t something you just stop once it gets started. What happened two weekends ago was the deadliest day in Israel’s existence since it came into being in 1948. I don’t think it has quite dawned on a lot of people here, who are far removed from what’s going on over there, exactly what happened.
Imagine you’re asleep next to your spouse. Your kids are asleep in their room. An elderly in law is asleep in the next room. None of you, as far as you know, have done anything wrong. You are just going about your business. Suddenly you are awakened by the crashing sound of your door being kicked in and shouting in a language you know it’s spoken only by those who are hostile to you. Before you are even fully awake, a half dozen men in full battle gear and black masks burst into the room, you hear bursts of gunfire and your children and mother-in-law scream as they are shot to pieces in their beds. You and your spouse can do nothing but watch these men squeeze the triggers and then meet eternity rushing out of the gun barrel. You have no idea why this was done. Meantime, up and down the neighborhood other doors are getting kicked in and other families being shot apart, and those are the lucky ones. Those who are less lucky are being beheaded or hauled off to be tortured and killed later.
Arguably, this is worse than Pearl harbor, where most of those targeted were military personnel who could be said to have accepted the risk when they signed on that a dishonorable enemy would hit them out of nowhere in a dirty sneak attack without a challenge sent. Arguably, in some ways it’s worse than 9/11, where those who died often died quickly and didn’t even know what was coming before it got them. It was those who responded who walked into the real hell. This wasn’t even like the troubles, where occasionally you would have one or two people shot or a few people blown up and numbers like this were not even heard of. This was a terrorist organization going door to door, targeting civilians, and killing or kidnapping indiscriminately. I wonder what we would have thought if black lives matter or antifa had gone door to door killing white people or killing conservative people 3 years ago. I’m ashamed to say I think there are more than a few people here, meaning in this country, who would have justified it, just like there are a few people who are trying to justify this. But there is no justifying this unless you have no moral compass and no ethics beyond whether or not something AIDS or hinders your cause.
This is not something that can be resolved by trading land or moving a line on a map here or there, or extending a franchise, or agreeing to a reduction in force on both sides, or agreeing that certain weapons will be decommissioned. This is not even a case where the dead on both sides will never get Justice, but in a lot of cases Justice would be 20 or 30 years after the fact. This is a case of a fresh invasion by a terrorist organization and mass murder. The bodies are barely in the ground, and there’s barely a family in southern Israel that didn’t lose someone here. This is partly about revenge, and partly about making damn sure nothing like this can ever happen again.
Into this situation is going to walk a doddering 80-year-old chief executive who barely knows what day it is, can barely answer softball questions, and has to be led from the stage. He does not present the slickness of Obama, the relative strength of George W. Bush, the confidence of Ronald Reagan, or even the Mr. Rogers-like let’s all be reasonable and get along vibe of Jimmy Carter. What he projects is incompetence and weakness. Hamas knows this, and the prime minister of Israel knows this. They also know that he is in trouble at home due to his incompetence and the multiple failures it has engendered. Hamas is probably happy about this, they don’t want a strong US president entering the picture. Netanyahu has led Israel in the time of at least three US presidents and he knows what he’s impressed with and what he isn’t.
Netanyahu would have every right to be cordial in public, but, once he and the president got behind closed doors, to tell him: “Mr. President, we are very busy here. Our security, our people, and even our sovereignty are at risk. We are very busy and these things are at risk in large part because you and your previous boss decided that it would be a good thing to release a large amount of money to a nation that is extremely hostile to our continued existence and has shown itself willing in the past to back this type of action, although usually on a smaller scale.
At this point, the best thing you can do is to stay out of our way and let us take the necessary action to protect our people and our land. Let us also not mince words, you are here as much for you as you are for anyone else involved here. In all of your lengthy political career you have never done anything unless there was something in it for you. The fact is that you are in trouble at home because your administration is seen, rightly or wrongly, as unsuccessful, and you face a determined challenge next year from a popular opponent who you are so afraid of that you are attempting to put him in jail.
You think this is an opportunity for you to swoop in like George Mitchell in Northern Ireland or like Clinton in the disintegrating Yugoslavia to impose peace on those poor benighted others who can’t see their way clear without an American Democrat to show them the way. Let me tell you something, Mr President. I was fighting terror and writing about how the West could defeat terror while you were still a relatively Junior senator with minimal power. I lost a brother to terror. I know something about fighting terror and I know something about these other situations.
George Mitchell got the success he did because the British army and police had kept up the fight for decades and made it clear that they were not simply going to fold nor lose, so it was end it now or end it later when a whole lot more people were dead, maybe even some of the people who came to the table. The relative success in the Balkans was as much due to the bravery of the Croatian army on the ground and determine resistance from those who Serbia sought to conquer as to anything Mr Clinton or his underlings said. You Americans only won the Cold War because the venerable Mr Reagan, of blessed memory, stood up to the Soviets and made it clear he was going to engage them in a spending and building race they could not hope to win.
Seldom has a great piece been achieved without a great conflict before, where it becomes evident to one side, the other, or both that they are not going to prevail on the battlefield and therefore they had better come to the table and work out a permanent deal that both sides can live with.
Mr President, Israel is at that point now, and we will not move nor be moved back from it so that you can distract your people from your failures and pick up some points in a poll somewhere. If the fact that Israel has reached this point makes things difficult for a president who is frankly in over his head, I will not lose sleep over it. Evacuate your citizens and do whatever else you must to avoid bloodshed of your own people, but otherwise stand aside. Israel is not interested in a quick ceasefire that will not solve this problem long-term. We are interested in killing those who killed our people in their beds without warning and breaking Hamas as a terrorist organization once and for all.
Now then, Mr president, I do not wish to be rude, but the war cabinet meets in an hour, I need to prepare, and I really can’t spend any more time with you right now. Good day, Mr President, have a safe flight back to Washington.”
It’s just a campaign stop, Steve. The DNC should be required to pay for the trip. The Biden Regime has decided he needs to be seen out and about rather than ensconced in his basement, so, it’s like an extended update of “Weekend at Bernie’s.” They’re going to wheel Demented Joe all over the place. None of which matters. They will stuff the ballot boxes in November of 2024 with mail in ballots harvested from everywhere, and Joe will be re-elected.
Sometimes FDR kept his plans hidden from even Eleanor.
It was a big thing to take the President of the United States across the Atlantic during wartime, risking his ship being targeted by a U-Boat (although it nearly was sunk by friendly fire when a live round was inadvertently loaded and fired), a plane shot down by the luftwaffe or being assassinated by German agents (read “The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill” by Brad Meltzer).
At least, one could argue, talking shop with Stalin and Churchill and making agreements was a practical goal, regardless of how well those agreements were later implemented.
There’s nothing Biden can do here. Israel will not be utterly destroyed. If you believe what I do, a remnant of Israel will always be spared as it has been over the centuries. I am, however, unnerved at the timing of all of this. The United States, arguably Israel’s biggest ally in the world, is nearly at a standstill because the government is on the verge of shutting down and Congress has no Speaker.
Is it reasonable to say that the terrorists planned their attack that well or that there are other forces at work here?
The trip is proving to be a remarkable opportunity for various governments in the region to humiliate Mr. Biden in person. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/israel-palestine-war-arab-leaders-meeting-with-biden-cancelled-over-gaza-hospital-attack-4491013
Not that it’s very hard…..
For our politicians to enter Israel in the midst of its existential war is abhorrent. It deflects men, women, and resources from the task at hand. I.E. Destroy Hama.
Maybe his DNC handlers were hoping an errant Hamas rocket would give them a Harris presidency?