The US State Department and Its Shameful Behavior Toward Israel

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The US State Department has a habit of sticking it to Israel. Here is just some of our coverage of their gifts to Israel over the years. Rest assured, these are just the tip of the iceberg.

More recently, we have all been witness to extremely disappointing behavior by the Secretary of State, John Kerry, who successfully neutralized the international consensus on Iran and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (yes, I’m plagiarizing that line) on the matter of their nuclear program just as Iran appeared to be at their breaking point. To remind everyone, neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program is Israel’s foremost priority. It is perceived by many Israeli leaders as a matter of life and death for Israel.

Since losing to Iran wasn’t enough, Kerry also forced Israel into a 9 month negotiations with the Palestinians by first demanding that Israel release 100 Palestinian murderers as a “goodwill gesture” and then watching as the negotiations blew up in Israel’s face when the PA decided early on to stop meeting with Israelis directly. The blame, of course, was placed on “settlements” not on Palestinian refusal to budge on their positions, or even to meet in good faith. During this process Kerry gave an interview in which he claimed that Israel would become an apartheid state without successful outcome, thus giving the Palestinians yet another gift during a complex period by indicating that Israel would be “punished” by the world if they don’t come to terms with the Palestinians. How did the process end? Well, without any incentive to compromise and a sympathetic US State Department (which, in turn, gave a green light to the Europeans to place pressure on Israel), the process ended with a whimper. Then, Martin Indyk criticized Israel publicly and almost certainly as an unnamed source as well. Indyk, as Kerry’s key adviser on these negotiations, was the point man for the US. Israel was maligned in the press and diplomatic circles, the Palestinians were excused and 75 Palestinians murderers were set free.

Kerry is also the person who, in the midst of Israel’s operation on Gaza, was caught on a hot mic (on national TV) ironically and bitterly complaining about Israel’s operation and their execution of “a hell of a pinpoint operation,” upon hearing the news of a particular attack, meaning that the Israelis were allegedly not pinpointing at all. Of course, since then, we’ve all learned that many of the supposedly civilian Gaza casualties were, in fact, combatants and that the combatant to civilian death ratio in the recent Gaza operation appears to be 1:1. This is remarkably low and far better than Western armies have been achieving in the past couple of decades within built-up areas.

As if accusing Israel, a country that now fights wars with lawyers attached at the hip, was not offensive enough, about a month after the Gaza operation ended, the US began attacking the Islamic State from the air and immediately relaxed its own rules of engagement meant to protect civilians. Needless to say, when Israel was attacking the fighters next to Israel (not half a world away) that were launching rockets at Israeli civilians and tunneling to their communities, the State Department informed the media and the world that Israel was not doing everything in its power to protect civilians. There have been no apologies forthcoming from Kerry or the State Department.

Kerry permitted Qatar and Turkey to interfere with Israeli and Egyptian efforts to bring Hamas to a cease fire early on during the Gaza operation. Kerry actually presented the demands of Hamas for a day or two, until the public bitter criticism made him pull back. A little while later it was discovered that the prominent think tank, the Brookings Institute, which employs Kerry’s premier Middle East adviser, Martin Indyk, was a recipient of a recent $15 million gift from Qatar. Qatar also funds Hamas and is accused of being a funding source or at least a conduit for donors to Islamic State. To be fair, Qatar also recently bought $11 billion of arms from the US, so they have other means of getting a seat at the table. In any case, Kerry insisted on sidelining Egypt and bringing in Qatar and the other Hamas sponsor, Turkey, to bring an end to the fighting by recommending terms demanded by Hamas, a terror organization. By pushing aside Israel and another American ally, Egypt, he gave Hamas a victory they could not have imagined over its two key foes, each of whom sit on one of Gaza’s borders. It almost seemed as if the US State Department had forgotten who are our allies and who are our enemies and mild friends. Fortunately, the Israelis didn’t budge.

Not enough? The other day Kerry blamed part of the the rise of Islamic State on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL coalition…there wasn’t a leader I met with in the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to get peace between Israel and the Palestinians, because it was a cause of recruitment and of street anger and agitation…”

The man was being serious. It didn’t occur to him that perhaps the brutal dictators with whom he was conversing had been deflecting their subjects’ unhappiness and dissatisfaction by pointing a finger at the “Zionists.” It didn’t enter his mind, apparently, that these Muslims at Islamic State might behave as they would regardless of what Israel and the Palestinian do or don’t do. Nope, if Arabs murder other Arabs, enslave their women and children and then behead some foreigners, it must be because of Israel not achieving peace with the Palestinians. Must be “settlements.”

I could go on, especially since I’ve just learned the US stopped ALL weapons shipments to Israel during the recent Gaza operation (I guess when Obama said he “has Israel’s back,” he meant with a knife stuck in it), but this is depressing enough already and I haven’t gotten to my point yet about what happened today. I will now.

The State Department should be deeply ashamed of its continued hostility to Israel. On a day when a Muslim terrorist in Canada murdered a soldier by shooting him in cold blood, and the day after another Muslim terrorist murdered another Canadian soldier in a different part of that country by running him over with a car, the State Department has demonstrated how differently it views Israel than another ally. What did the State Department spokesperson say about the car attack yesterday?

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf condemned the attack and said they have been in touch with Canadian officials. “We deplore acts of violence toward military and law enforcement, and stand ready to assist our Canadian partners as they investigate this act,”

Fair enough. A reasonable statement.

And how did the US State Department spokesperson react to the vehicular terror attack earlier today in Jerusalem, for which Hamas has accepted credit (it also appears Fatah is trying to demonstrate connection to the terrorist), in which a 3 month old baby of American parents was murdered along with eight others injured?

“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms today’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an evening statement. “We express our deepest condolences to the family of the baby, reportedly an American citizen, who was killed in this despicable attack, and extend our prayers for a full recovery to those injured. We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.”

Permit me to highlight the offensive part:

“We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident.”

What is wrong with this world? What’s wrong with the US State Department that it cannot differentiate between allies and enemies, between a democracy and terrorists, between defensive actions and terror attacks and between a response that did not happen and a terror attack that did? What is wrong with the US State Department that it continues to hand victory after victory to the murderous, hateful, brutal groups including Arab terror groups, Palestinian America-hating leaders, Arab terror financiers and also to dictators who use Israel as a deflection mechanism to perpetuate power? Hamas just walked away from an international donor conference put together and led by (surprise!) John Kerry in which $5.4 billion were pledged to help run the PA and to “reconstruct Gaza.” Since then (less than a month), we have learned that Hamas is rebuilding tunnels to Israel, is constructing rockets again and now has a sympathizer who committed an atrocious terror attack upon innocent civilians including a baby.

Perhaps next time, the State Department could take a day or two to honor the murdered and injured victims and their society before insulting them and giving their murderers an additional reason to cheer?