Biden Foreign Policy
April 3, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The New York Post has a good editorial on President Biden’s big April 2 phone call with President Xi. It notes that the White House readout of the call fails to align with Beijing’s summary. According to the White House, Biden told Xi that restrictions are necessary “to prevent advanced U.S. technologies from being used to undermine our national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment.” According to Beijing, Xi
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March 26, 2024 — Scott Johnson
We’ve traced the drift of President Biden and his team away from Israel toward the side of Hamas in the current war. You might say they’re selling Israel out, but it’s not clear what they’re getting in return. You might say they don’t know what they’re doing, but one fears that they do. They seek the survival of Hamas as Israel seeks to complete its campaign to eliminate it as
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March 24, 2024 — Steven Hayward
The Biden Administration’s diplomacy with Israel over its war against Hamas has reached the Animal House “double-secret probation” stage, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken warning Israel that it may find itself diplomatically “isolated” in the world if it attacks Rafah. Is it possible for Israel to be any more “isolated” than it already is in the joke that is called “the diplomatic community”? Dean Wormer could hardly have done
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March 24, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Times of Israel provides updates on Palestinian casualties according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, but suggests that skepticism is warranted. Indeed, the Ministry of Health is best understood as the functional equivalent of the Ministry of Truth (“Minitrue”) conceived by George Orwell in 1984, i.e., the ministry of propaganda. In its update on Palestinian casualties in Gaza today, the Times of Israel states the numbers of dead and wounded
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March 23, 2024 — John Hinderaker
It is widely believed that Joe Biden’s anti-Israel, pro-Hamas policy is driven by his desperate need to carry Michigan if he is to have any hope of re-election. That seems like a reasonable assumption, although, to be fair, it is also possible that he shares his old boss’s anti-Israel animus. But here is another one: Scoop: The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning senior
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March 22, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden has turned on Israel. He and his brain trust support the survival of Hamas. It’s a big-time sell-out. The cover of the current issue of England’s Economist depicts Israel Alone (cover story here behind the Economist paywall). It reminded me of the time when England stood alone against a genocidal maniac — alone against “the insane tyrant,” as Leo Strauss referred to Hitler in his tribute to Churchill
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March 21, 2024 — Lloyd Billingsley
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is developing “a hypersonic missile designed to strike distant US targets,” the AP reports. Attacking the USA is key for him, so Biden needs a plan to get Kim Jong Un and his top general. They want a meeting with Biden, who insists on a bar, a restaurant, a place where there’s people, so he feels safe. Biden gets the CIA to find out
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March 20, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Biden administration produced a disgraceful debacle with its exit from Afghanistan. We live with the consequences around the world. Our enemies hold Biden in contempt. The authors of the debacle have suffered no impairment of their self-regard, let alone any detrimental effect on their career. Merrily they roll along. The House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on the debacle yesterday. Retired Army General Mark Milley, former chairman of
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March 19, 2024 — Scott Johnson
Representatives of the Israeli government have been summoned by the Biden administration to meet in Washington next week. See Joel Pollak’s Breitbart News story on National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s press conference yesterday here (the White House transcript is posted here). This is classic: Sullivan said that Biden had specifically criticized Netanyahu’s plans to attack Hamas in Rafah. Sullivan said that Biden had addressed what he called a “straw man,”
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March 16, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Biden administration conveys a pathetic weakness for which the physical person of President Biden serves as an apt metaphor. In its current story on administration negotiations with Iran that date back to January, the New York Times reports: Two Iranian officials, one with the foreign ministry, said that Iran had maintained in the talks that it did not control the activity of the militia [targeting Americans], particularly the Houthis,
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March 15, 2024 — John Hinderaker
Yesterday, Chuck Schumer took the Senate floor to deliver a ringing condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and of Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas. Schumer’s speech represented a naked effort to interfere in Israeli politics by seeking to overturn that country’s government. Today a reporter asked Joe Biden about Schumer’s speech. Biden endorsed it: President Biden hailed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday for calling on
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March 14, 2024 — John Hinderaker
For years, the Democrats have been yammering about “election interference” by Russia that turned out to be either de minimis or entirely fabricated. Now, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, they are aggressively interfering in Israel’s internal politics. Scott wrote here about the fact that the Biden Administration “obviously seeks to depose the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.” The administration has gone so far as to make public an
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March 13, 2024 — Scott Johnson
The Biden administration obviously seeks to depose the government of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The administration has released our intelligence community’s assessment that Netanyahu’s “viability as a leader” is “in jeopardy,” according to the annual report on the national security threats facing the United States that was presented to Congress on Monday. I assess that the wish is father to the thought. The assessment provides: “Distrust of Netanyahu’s ability to
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March 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden is reportedly “thinking” about imposing conditions on military aid to Israel if the IDF assault on Hamas’s redoubt in Rafah proceeds as planned. Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke by video to AIPAC’s annual policy conference in Washington. Netanyahu’s office has posted the video clip below on X and a six-minute video here on YouTube (with an echo for the first minute). The Prime Minister’s Office has posted Netanyahu’s text
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March 12, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden apparently thinks the IDF should observe Ramadan as it seeks to eliminate the genocidaires of Hamas. By contrast, the genocidaires of Hamas find Jewish holidays the right time to do their thing. It’s enough to make a sane man vomit. Wall Street Journal letters editor Elliot Kaufman is not too choked up about Biden’s Ramadan recess. His column on the subject is datelined Tel Aviv and runs with
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March 11, 2024 — Scott Johnson
President Biden’s animus against Israel was patent in his State of the Union Address this past Thursday evening. The White House has posted the text of his remarks as given here. JNS editor Jonathan Tobin sets forth a rounded view of “the moral failure” of Biden’s remarks on Israel. Tobin separately addresses and elaborates on Biden’s demands on Israel, the floating harbor for Hamas, the two-state final solution, the lack
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March 10, 2024 — Scott Johnson
It turns out that President Biden has a red line. It applies to Israel. In an unlocked story, the Wall Street Journal reports that “Biden Warns Netanyahu an Assault on Rafah Would Cross ‘Red Line.’” Biden apparently seeks to depose the Netanyahu government. He thinks that Netanyahu is the problem. He also seeks to preserve Hamas. He finds them easier to deal with than Netanyahu. Biden’s daycare minders in the
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