Want Israel to win the war? Don't vote for Harris – opinion

Recently, the Biden-Harris administration sent a letter to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant instructing officials to address the “humanitarian situation” in Gaza or risk losing key American military aid. The letter, signed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, cites their “deep concern” over the conditions in northern Gaza, where trucks bringing humanitarian aid are “delayed at crossing points” and the amount of aid making it inside has dropped by more than 50 percent. 

The administration went on to provide a list of “concrete measures” to “surge all forms of humanitarian assistance” through Gaza, telling the Israelis that a failure to follow through on these policies could lead to a reevaluation of American military assistance.

The timing of the letter couldn’t be more galling. 

Israel is currently fighting a war on seven fronts – including a historic missile attack from Iran, an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and a suicide drone attack from Hezbollah that killed four soldiers and injured almost 70 in the bloodiest day since October 7. 

Threatening to withhold critical military assistance at such a perilous time is not only a flagrant slight, it is also a shortsighted measure that will inevitably extend the war – especially after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, which offers the best pathway in months for forcing the terrorists to lay down their weapons.

Biden administration’s pathetic approach to Middle East

Under international law, belligerents are allowed to lay siege to their enemy until they surrender, meaning that any Israeli efforts to control aid into Gaza should be well within their wartime rights. 

Any reasonable observer of this conflict understands that Hamas – having spent the past year stealing aid shipments from Gazan civilians and giving them to its terror operatives – bears significant responsibility for situations such as missing aid or derailed trucks. Forcing Israel to send even more aid into the area only gives the already embattled terror group life support at a time when the world should be calling for its surrender.

More broadly, the letter and its timing are emblematic of the Biden administration’s pathetic approach to Middle Eastern foreign policy, which constrains Israel at every turn while handing a virtual blank check to Iran, and by extension to its proxies, to wreak havoc in the region. 

The Democratic establishment has attempted to curtail Israel since the start of the war, demanding at every turn that it produce plans to protect civilians – a steep ask in any war, but particularly so when it is battling an enemy that hides beneath civilian populations as a cornerstone of its strategy.

The White House’s recent request for Jerusalem to “surge” aid into Gaza is nothing new. 

The Biden-Harris administration has been set on breaking Israel’s legal siege and demanding that Israel resupply their terrorist enemy for months. It even delayed Israel’s invasion of Rafah – the place where six hostages, including an American, were later found murdered in terror tunnels 65 feet  (20 m.) underground; and where Sinwar was ultimately killed – with similar demands, threatening to withhold aid and weapons shipments if the Israelis went in. 

This clear ploy by Democrats to pick up a few votes in Arab-majority Dearborn, Michigan only hobbled the Israeli war effort and prolonged the fighting, creating more carnage and instability, which Washington then blamed on the Jewish state.

THIS WOULD be egregious enough on its own, but the administration’s constant slaps on the Israeli wrist are made infinitely more infuriating when compared to its approach to Iran. 

Biden-Harris inherited Obama’s permissive attitude toward the Islamic Republic, promising over and over that their leniency stemmed from efforts to enact a nuclear deal and that a stronger posture was just around the corner. Of course, the deal fell through, the administration’s approach didn’t change, and, as Michael Doran wrote in Tablet last year: “The Islamic Republic has, to name just a few developments, brutally suppressed the worst protests in its history, advanced its nuclear weapons program considerably, pursued plots to murder former American officials on American soil, and developed a defense industrial cooperation with the Russian military... “None of these developments managed to try the patience of the Biden administration.” 

There seems to be nothing – including its launching the biggest missile attack in history two weeks ago – that will force the Democrats to take a stronger stance on Iran, which in turn only emboldens the Islamic Republic to continue sowing chaos throughout the entire Middle East.

The situation should be crystal clear to anyone who values Israeli security. Beneath the lip service from the Biden-Harris camp about wanting Israel to finally win their war lies a track record of limiting, meddling with, and downright damaging the Jewish state’s ability to do just this – and a parallel track record of enabling the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue funding the proxies that launch rockets into Israel every single day.

The Democratic Party is more interested in appealing to its contingent of pro-Hamas voters by publicly condemning Israel than it is in upholding what should be an ironclad American commitment to the only democracy in a region rife with jihadists and instability. 

It is no coincidence that the latest Democratic threat against Israel comes only weeks before a crucial election – and voters with the Jewish state high on their priority list should take note of this too.

The writer is a prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and star of an Emmy-nominated Netflix original series, Skin Decision: Before and After.