No Surprise: Biden Is Caving to the Left on Israel — Because That’s What He Does

New York Post ^ | May 10, 2024 | Social Links forRich Lowry

[nickcarraway]

Is anyone surprised that Joe Biden is caving? It’s what he does. In a disgracefully craven move, President Biden has paused weapons shipments to Israel to try to prevent the Jewish state from launching a full-scale offensive against the remaining Hamas military stronghold in Rafah.

It’s a policy shift sheathed in high-minded concern about the safety of civilians in Gaza but happens to be a change in direction that is welcome to a political left that has whipped itself into an anti-Israel frenzy in the months since the Oct. 7 attack.

Not too long ago, Biden was averring that Hamas had to be destroyed and that our commitment to Israel was “ironclad.” That was before the war — waged in a high-density urban environment against an adversary that hides among civilians — created an international backlash and a political revolt among progressives braying “Genocide.”

[Red6]

Not even most our bigger allies have the war industrial base to “go it alone,” i.e. Germany, UK, France...

And these are nations with 50+ million people, in Germany's case 80+ million. These are bigger industrial economies (where the industrial revolution started), high tech nations.

Thinking Israel can develop and build their own modern fighters, missile systems, guided bombs, command and control systems, missile defense systems, from the ground up, is a far-far stretch. Even the stuff that is “Israeli” and everyone associates with them, usually is packed with US defense contractors (Raytheon, LM, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman) working with them, or US sourced components, i.e. Arrow missile, Iron Dome, Trophy self defense system... Example: https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/advanced-technology-and-innovation/the-brains-behind-military-electronics-custom-asic-chips

For Israel, there is no way around it, they will be dependent on foreign sourced military hardware.

However, what lesson should be learned from this is that they need to ensure to manage risk by sourcing some military hardware from Russia and China. Most EU nations are basically going to be the same problem as being solely dependent on us and that poses a risk today.

Historically, since the US and Israel pretty much lined up in interests 100%, and it was unimaginable that we abandon them, being solely dependent on us made sense.

However, what has happened under the Biden administration speaks for itself. It's what the topic of this thread is about!