President Joe Biden is back in the country after a brief visit to Israel. The trip was cut short after a bomb hit a hospital in Gaza, and meetings with Jordan and the Palestinians were canceled.
What actually happened at the hospital continues to be an ongoing and emotional argument. But the President made it clear he believes it was a terrorist missile fired inside of Gaza that malfunctioned and roared back to earth.
The number of people killed is also a source of much debate. Originally, we were told more than 500 died in the explosion—but now that is not certain either.
Many reports now claim that the main hospital is intact and only the parking lot was hit, making it almost impossible for 500 people to have been killed.
President Biden is always dangerous on the world stage, telling reporters on Air Force One that he understands why people think America and Israel are behind the hospital bombing. Brilliant move there.
When asked if he believes Israel is fighting this war within accepted boundaries, Biden quickly ended the questions and walked out. But it is more than he usually answers—in fact, it was borderline miraculous that he did it at all.
Earlier in the day, he was having a lot more trouble navigating a conversation where he had to rely on note cards because there was not a teleprompter available, it seems.
He stumbled through an anecdote about his time in the Senate, starting a story, forgetting it halfway through, then bailing.
The focus for most of the day was what happened to the hospital in Gaza—a Christian hospital, we are told—and emotions are certainly running high on all sides. The outspoken antisemites on Capitol Hill did not hold back in the verbal attacks on the Jewish state. Clearly, they have a political agenda and aren’t interested in the truth—but that seems to be true from Kyiv to Tel Aviv these days.
Rashida Tlaid made that much clear when she tearfully repeated the claim that Israel bombed a Palestinian hospital.
This puts her on opposite sides with her President and her Democrat Party, many of whom are frequently appalled by her behavior and hateful comments about Jews. Antisemitic tropes repeated by her fellow squad members like Ilhan Omar and AOC are creating a rift for Democrats, who usually carry the Jewish vote almost completely. But this kind of divide could change that in the future—and in some states like New York or New Jersey, that could have a significant impact on future elections.
And it seems odd to me that the people who know Hamas and the Palestinian people the very best flat out refuse to open their borders to any refugees—and I mean any at all.
The answer is an unequivocal no!
For those backing Israel, the New York Times and others describing the hospital bombing as an attack from the Israeli Defense Force is an insult to Jews everywhere and smacks of reckless reporting or maybe something even worse.
Former CIA Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash says the news media taking a Hamas press secretary’s word about the hospital bombing and running with it could cause serious anti-Israeli sentiment in the region.
But for those in Israel, there is no other option but to end the terrorist threat once and for all.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu described Hamas as the “new Nazis” and “part of an axis of evil” along with Iran and Hezbollah. The only option, he says, is for the world to band together to wipe them out before they achieve their goal of eradicating Israel.
BY STEVE GRUBER