“Is the Biden Administration at War with Israel?”

by Guy Millière, GATESTONE INSTITUTE  •  December 12, 2021

  • “The US does not want to open a consulate merely to have a place for diplomatic connections with the PA [Palestinian Authority]. If that is all they wanted, they could easily do this by opening a mission in Abu Dis or Ramallah — where most other countries conduct their relations with the PA… the purpose of opening the consulate is to recognize Palestinian claims to Jerusalem.” — Eugene Kontorovitch, professor, George Mason University, Antonin Scalia School of Law, Israel Hayom, December 5, 2021.
  • The 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations states that “a consular post may be established in the territory of the receiving State only with that State’s consent”. In other words, reopening the consulate may be done only with the consent of the Israeli government.
  • All this cannot be dissociated from the general hostile attitude of the Biden administration towards Israel from the moment it came to power.
  • Earlier in March, an internal memo from the US State Department was leaked to The National, a daily newspaper in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The National reported that “The Biden administration memo recommends voicing US principles on achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace under a two-state solution framework ‘based on the 1967 lines'”.
  • The author of the memo is Hady Amr, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs and Press and Public Diplomacy in the Biden administration, and also in charge of US negotiations with Israel and Palestinian organizations. It is hard to imagine that Amr was chosen as an “honest broker”. Amr has a long history of anti-Israeli activities.
  • Amr also is the lead author of a report published by the Brookings Institution in December 2018 in which some proposals are made that could be regarded as disturbing. The report says that the United States must “reconnect” with Hamas, a fundamentalist terrorist group; seek “to create a Palestinian unity government integrating Hamas”, and “compel Israel to make major concessions”, even if it may “endanger Israel”. The report never defines Hamas as a terrorist group, and never says that Hamas’s goal is to destroy Israel. The report adds, “should Israel prove uncooperative with American efforts, the United States could signal it will move ahead anyway.”
  • The behavior of the Biden administration towards Israel is all the more worrying in that at the same time, it places itself in a weak position regarding negotiations with Iran and seems ready to make a deal with the mullahs’ regime at any price, in a resolution that has already been called “less for less”, or, worse, “less for more”.
  • An Israeli diplomatic service briefing recently announced the Biden administration is ready to accept a deal with Iran that includes only two elements: the removal of all international sanctions still imposed on Iran, and Iran’s pledge to stop enriching uranium, which would mean that Iran’s nuclear program would remain intact and that Iran’s regional destabilization actions, including its threats against Israel, could continue.
  • Two days before the current negotiations began, chief Iranian Army spokesman Brigadier General Abolfazl Shekarchi said to the Iran Students News Agency (ISNA) that Israel’s annihilation is his country’s “greatest ideal before us and the greatest goal we pursue.”
  • Iran claims, truthfully or not, that it already has enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear warhead on short notice. On November 8, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh, announced that Iran will only agree to sign a deal with the US if all sanctions are unconditionally lifted. “Either we agree on everything, or we agree on nothing,” he said.
  • The US Biden Administration seems…. at a time finally of peace, deliberately acting to destabilize not only Israel’s new coalition government but, more importantly, the entire region. The United States seems once again to be igniting, on the heels of its failure in Afghanistan, yet a second, unnecessary disruption, with all the carnage, global damage and pandemonium that will result. Those two historic upheavals will be the legacies of the Biden Administration. If Biden is looking for yet another disaster to notch on his belt, this is it.

“The US does not want to open a consulate merely to have a place for diplomatic connections with the PA [Palestinian Authority]… the purpose of opening the consulate is to recognize Palestinian claims to Jerusalem.” — Professor Eugene Kontorovitch, Antonin Scalia School of Law, George Mason University. According to Dore Gold, formerly both Israel’s Ambassador to the UN and Foreign Ministry Director-General, “The opening of the consulate on Agron Road in the west of the city will not only undermine Israeli sovereignty in the capital, it will also result in a serious withdrawal from the status Israel achieved in West Jerusalem prior to 1967.”

On May 2018, when the United States Embassy in Jerusalem was inaugurated on the 70th anniversary of the State of Israel’s founding, the US consulate in Jerusalem became useless and quickly shut its gates. Now, in 2021, the current US Biden administration wants to reopen the consulate, “for the Palestinians”, Arabs ruled by the Palestinian Authority.

Seeing this proposal as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty over Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett declined the request.

“A U.S. consulate in Jerusalem to a foreign body”, wrote the noted attorney and former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and “clearly runs afoul of American law” because of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, passed overwhelmingly by both the U.S. House and Senate.

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December 12, 2021 | 5 Comments »

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  1. Biden Administration (Blinken) wanted to talk Gantz as much about ” settler violence” and their worry that settlements are destroying a two state solution than the Iranian nuclear threat.

    US Administration apparently is more worried about Jewish Towns a few settlers who may got of hand occasionally than rampant growing murder rate in major US cities and massive looting of stores in the US. Never mind they also ignore the Palestinian terrorism going on from time to time.

    So Jews building homes for Jews is a problem, Iran nukes not so much and crime in the streets of America not so much.

    Wow Biden’s American is worse than Jimmy Carter’s and Obama’s.

  2. The Laborite Israli minister of public security, Omer Barlev, is working closely with the Biden administration both to bolster the “State of Palestine” and to conpire with it against the Israeli “settlers.” This is from today’s Arutz Sheva:

    Minister under fire for talking about ‘settler violence’
    Outrage after Public Security Minister Omer Barlev says he spoke to US official about “settler violence”.

    19:03 13.12.21
    Public Security Minister Omer Barlev (Labor) met on Monday with US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who is visiting Israel.

    Commenting on the meeting on his Twitter account, Barlev said that the senior US official was “interested, among other things, in the settler violence and how to reduce tensions in the region and strengthen the Palestinian Authority.”

    Barlev wrote, “I told her that increasing the work permits for Palestinians in Israel, both from Judea and Samaria and Gaza, which we are already carrying out, is a key to reducing tensions, just like implementing the plan to establish a joint industrial zone on the outskirts of Gaza and more. American assistance for such projects can help a lot.”

    The chairman of the Religious Zionist Party, MK Bezalel Smotrich, blasted Barlev for writing the words “settler violence”.

    “Listen, I’m sorry for being blunt, but you are simply contemptible. Hundreds of thousands of heroic residents of Judea and Samaria absorb terrorism on a daily basis and have paid a heavy price, and you shed their blood with wretchedness and participate in a false and antisemitic campaign that defames them in order to look enlightened and please a bunch of hypocrites. Shame on you little man. And thank you to Ayelet Shaked, thanks to whom you are a minister.”

    MK Kathrin Shitrit (Likud) responded, “If I had not known him, I would have been sure that this was the Minister of Public Security of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority. The weakness of these people is simply unbelievable.”

    Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked distanced herself from Minister Barlev’s remarks and told him, “You are confused, the settlers are the salt of the earth, the successors of the pioneers from the valley and the mountain. The violence over which we must be shocked is the dozens of incidents of rock-throwing and firing on Jews that happen every day – only because they are Jews, and all this with the encouragement and support of the PA. I recommend that you talk about this violence with Ms. Nuland.”

    Yisrael Gantz, chairman of the Binyamin Regional Council, demanded that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett respond to the words of the Minister of Public Security. “Barlev incites and permits the blood of the residents of Judea and Samaria and of IDF soldiers. It is amazing how in the face of dozens of Arab terrorist incidents every day, the Minister of Public Security chooses to attack the residents of Judea and Samaria using falsities. I demand that Prime Minister Bennett dissociate himself from Barlev’s remarks and publicly condemn them. There is a limit.”

    The head of the Efrat local council, Oded Revivi, said, “The Minister of Public Security should have replied to her that there are many more settlers who employ tens of thousands of Palestinians full time. He should have told her about the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians employed in Israel who are receiving medical treatment. He should not have let her stain all the ‘settlers.'”

    “The minister’s silence is akin to consent and it well represents the sense of a campaign of demonization on the part of some members of the US administration and some MKs against the settlers, 99.99% of whom do not use violence against Palestinians, even if their wives left them or their parents were angry the night before. Until a few months ago, it seemed that the settlers were no longer a demon, there should not be people who are trying to bring them back to be viewed that way,” Revivi added.

    MK Yomtob Kalfon (Yamina) responded to Barlev and said, “A minister in the Israeli government is supposed to defend the Israeli interest and not cooperate with the false narrative of our enemies. The emphasis on ‘settler violence’ is intended to create a counterweight to the acts of terrorism perpetrated daily by Palestinians against Jews. It is just that there is no symmetry between the murderous Palestinian terrorism funded by the PA, and the vandalism of youths that are on the margins.”

    The Yesha Council attacked Minister Barlev and said, “Minister Barlev, are you a minister in the Palestinian Authority or in the Israeli government?! Tonight, five Israelis were injured as a result of rock-throwing by violent Arabs. Two weeks ago, a Jew was murdered by an Arab teacher. Minister Barlev, tonight you abandoned the security of your citizens through antisemitic plots. Did you also tell her about the dozens of rocks, the firebombs and the daily terrorist attacks against the civilians, soldiers and police that you are responsible for their safety?! We demand an urgent apology and the Prime Minister’s renunciation of this nonsense.”

    Making a Laborite head of public security in Israel is the proverbial hiring the fox to guard the chicken coop.

  3. “Israel Consulted with US Before Attacking Iranian Sites” Dec. 11.
    – Algemeiner quoting I24 news quoting the New York Times .Yes and no, it would seem, though the reliability of the primary source is often dubious, at best.

  4. Yes it is, but I’m not so sure that a second Trump term would be as friendly with Israel as the first term, like I said in the other thread. I hope I’m wrong. Obviously I would vote for Trump in the general election, but maybe alternative candidates should be considered in the GOP primary.