President Joe Biden’s sojourn
No matter what the administration claims, the purpose of the President’s visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and elsewhere, the real reason was a need for oil. In a country not controlled by radical leftists like John Kerry, Elizabeth Warren, and some former New York City bartender, it would not be necessary since we have much oil here that Democrats refuse to use or have shut down for partisan politics.
Despite denouncing Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” during his campaign, Biden went to Jeddah to beg murderous Prince Mohammed bin Salman to pump more oil. That’s a humiliation. AMAC, perhaps correctly.
A more capable leader could have enjoyed a more effective trip. After all, the Israeli government had just fallen, with new elections scheduled in the coming months. Former President Barack Obama certainly never hesitated to meddle in Israeli elections.
The President properly remembered the Holocaust by visiting Yad Vashem, though he somehow managed to mistakenly refer to the “honor” rather than the horror of the murder of 6 million Jews.
Biden and Israeli caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid released a joint statement titled the “Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration,” which commits to halting Iran’s movement toward a nuclear weapon as if this is a novel concept. Apparently, both Team Biden and Lapid — who hoped for a pledge to use military action in case Iran has a nuclear breakout — wanted to paper over their fundamental disagreement about how to confront Iran.
The two leaders spoke after the tepid document was signed. Biden’s statement emphasized that a diplomatic solution was needed for Iran’s nuclear program. In a very rare move for an Israeli PM, Lapid publicly criticized Biden:
Words will not stop them, Mr. President. “Diplomacy will not stop them, The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force.”
But when Biden traveled to the West Bank to meet Mahmoud Abbas, president-for-life of the Palestinian Authority, little progress was made toward the quixotic goal of dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians.
That’s because Abbas has zero interest in peace or Israel’s existence, something the American left still does not understand. Among other vitriol, Abbas made “apartheid” tropes and demanded East Jerusalem be the capital of a newly constituted “Palestine.”
Hours after Biden left Abbas, Hamas presented its opinion of Biden by sending rockets into Israel.
Desperate to appease some fringe base of Bernie Sanders-style anti-Semites at home, Biden pledged hundreds of millions in new aid for the West Bank and Gaza, even as the world has thrown hundreds of billions into the cause with little effect. Recently, $200 million was tossed to the United Nations Relief Works Agency, despite widespread anti-Semitism by its employees. So the White House denounced Jew hatred one day and promptly supported it the next.
With disastrous inflation at home, Biden’s top goal was to secure additional oil output from a key producer, notwithstanding all the unhinged rhetoric about the kingdom.
There were a few accomplishments, like Saudi Arabia opening its airspace to flights from Israel for the first time, causing Israeli papers to wax about possible Saudi softening on Israel. The latter is doubtful.
Much was made of the optics — the handshaking with the King of Biden’s first encounter with Mohammed bin Salman. He is believed to have ordered the Jamal Khashoggi killing, especially on the lunatic left. Both were mixed, in my opinion.
Biden claims to have raised the issue of the slain anti-Israel journalist with the Saudi prince, yet others contradicted that, leading even the New York Times to scoff.
The trip possibly could have been worse in substance and optics, but I had low expectations. The overall impression, moreover, was a lackluster president and decreased American power — add in last summer’s shambolic surrender in Afghanistan; hesitation over Ukraine; Iran’s latest nuclear boasting; and gas still around $5 per gallon despite the Saudi meeting, due to totalitarian environmentalists running the White House — all courtesy of still-delusional Democrats in only 18 months.
A.J. Kaufman is a columnist for Alpha News and here at The Lid
President Joe Biden’s sojourn
