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Is Biden “about to” abandon Israel? — 50 Comments

1. If Biden follows through on Obama’s antipathy toward the Jewish state, our gaze will again turn to the large number of Jews wedded to Democrat politics. Chuck Schumer’s nuance is blaming Netanyahu, ignoring Israel’s ongoing existential struggle. But blaming Bibi will not wash for many. Is the Jewish community edging toward an internal schism, or will we merely see a repeat of Jimmy Carter’s decline in Jewish votes?

2. Banned Lizrd:

   This focus, first and foremost, on how Jews have voted in.recent years seems misplaced. I’ve pointed out time and again that Jews are a small group, have traditional reasons for voting Democrat, and for most people changing political affiliation is a slow process. What’s more, the more religious Jews vote Republican. About 1/3 of Jews have voted Republican in recent years, and polls indicate even more Jews are now moving in that direction.

   Individual Jews such as Schumer don’t speak for Jews as a whole. Does Dennis Prager or David Horowitz?

   And your question about whether the Jewish community is edging towards an internal schism tells me you’re not familiar with the old Jewish joke: “Two Jews, three opinions. “

3. I would like to see the most recent statistics concerning Jewish voting patterns and preferences.

4. Does Israel actually have atomic bombs?
   If Israel runs out of ammo will it be tempted to drop one in order to end the war?

5. . . . .Jews are a small group, have traditional reasons for voting Democrat, and for most people changing political affiliation is a slow process.

   You can say the same for Muslims in America concerning their support or non-support for the Palestinians.

6. that is the samson option, as Sydney Hersh suggested in his book, where he relied on a fantasist Ari Ben Menashe, at best a low level Foreign Ministry spokesmen, who told tall tales in the 80s about the October Surprise, and Iran Contra, it’s the back story to Sum of All Fears, also a David Wise tale from the 80s Spectrum
   its officially unacknowledged unofficially it’s an understanding, their technology was sufficiently far enough to aid the South African in their abortive program

7. Israel definitely does have nuclear weapons. That is not in dispute.

8. South Africa probably did detonate a nuclear device, developed jointly with Israel, in the vastness of the ocean south of the African continent. I don’t recall the purported date of the detonation, just that it was quite awhile ago. Nothing else could have produced a seismic disturbance (i.e., explosion) of the magnitude that was recorded, except perhaps a moderately sized asteroid.

9. they made a fuss back in 86, about 7 years after the test,
   https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/21/international/middleeast/israeli-who-revealed-nuclear-secrets-is-freed.html
   he was a disgruntled employee,

10. Neo,
    It’s my understanding that Jews essentially bankrolled the Democrats. So the question would be do you want the votes or do you want the money to buy the votes. I heard it as “2 Jews 3 arguments” of course I’m of the Mel Brooks school of thought.

11. Why do white middle and upper class women vote Democrat when Democrat policies threaten their sons and daughters economically, mentally and physically (trans madness)?

    But, but, but how do the Jews vote!

12. what I noted about obama was his cold indifference about somethings, and his manufactured outrage about others

    ihttps://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/israel-hostage-hamas-kidnapping-footage

13. What will it take for American Jews to recognize and accept that the Democrats are not their supporters, advocates or, even, friends?

14. om
    From what I see personally, that’s true. But the interesting thing for me is that issues of policy are never included. It’s all about how Trump is a terrible man, all about the feelz.
    Even trying to discuss policy issues is like talking to an elementary school kid. About…maybe cops and blacks getting shot and one of the types will say, “I never got this fascination with guns,” as if it’s on point.
    Actual knowledge of the issues is miniscule except in case it’s wrong.

    Maybe they’ve had enough time in the Cocoon that there has been no penalty, or not one which could be tied to it, for following the feez instead of practicality and facts.

15. Good question

16. Neo:

    By ignoring the “or” (Jimmy Carter 2.0) part of my question, you miss the significance of your own question of whether Team Joe will fully abandon Israel – in other words, go beyond Carter and Obama’s mere dislike of the Jewish state. If this administration goes that far, the Jewish community will be faced with something we haven’t seen in a very long time. That’s the potential schism.

    But will Team Joe go that far? Are the odds of a major abandonment above or below 50/50? If they pull back from the brink, we’ll likely see Carter 2.0.

    I agree with your peculiar comments about Schumer, Prager, et al, the electoral insignificance of the Jewish vote, 2 Jews/3 opinions/4 political parties, etc. Captain Obvious also agrees, so you are clearly on to something.

17. Banned Lizard:

    I think Biden will continue to mouth rhetoric supportive to Israel while doing things that harm it. I think people in general don’t pay much attention to a lot of what he’s doing, and they are lulled into thinking he’s far more supportive than he is. So I don’t think there will be this huge reversal in the Jewish vote, but I think he’s already experienced and will continue to experience some dropoff.

18. Both the Obama and the Biden administration, (but I repeat myself) wish that Israel would simply vanish. Of course for political reasons they cannot admit that, so they work behind the scenes to chip away at support for Israel.
    The underlying factor in their hostility is the ideological and political pressure from leftist NGOs.
    Transnationalism is the theoretical base for George Soros’ Open Borders Society. Soros won’t fund an NGO that isn’t on board with that ‘theory’.
    Israel, by definition is strongly nationalistic and nationalism is posited by the ‘theory’ of Transnationalism to be the source of all wars. Advocates for transnationalism conveniently ignore the fact that for millennia wars occurred across the world before the rise of nation states. They ignore that obvious flaw because as always for the left, it is solely and always about the control needed to gain power.

    “Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.” David Horowitz

19. Speaking of changers, not enough has been made of the major shift of Israeli liberals to more conservative views since October 7. No doubt this is an aggravation for Team Joe.

20. What becomes of the Obamian-Biden policy/distancing when (soon, all too soon) tens and hundreds of thousands of Israelis perish under Hebollah and Iranian missile bombardment?

    What will Americans — Americans of whatever partisan tilt — do then?

    Will the Americans taken whole: 1) applaud?, 2) (figuratively) lynch their executive?, 3) twiddle their thumbs while uttering “oh!, woe is me!”.

    We’re about to find out.

21. Was a non-voter and almost non-political back in Carter’s years, but remember thinking of him as Jimmy ‘The Mullah’ Carter for some reason (?). Did Israel have some warnings about trusting the US during those years between 1977-1981? However, he did get Egypt to recognize Israel back then—some 45 year ago, which now gives Israel some relief along their S-SW border.

    From 2009-2017 Obama left no doubt that he sided with radical Islam against Israel, 7-15 years or so ago. Biden has made it clear—since at least 10/7/2023 that he also backs radical Islam against Israel.

    Over the years, has Israel ever made backup plans in case the US stopped supplying munitions to them?

    Since HW Bush, W Bush has been the ONLY US President with the stomach for War, and even his own Party abandoned him long before his 2nd term ended. No, Trump wasn’t and never will be a good War Time President. Heck, as Commander in Chief, he couldn’t even get his military to follow him in Peace Times.

    Now we see Israel running low on munitions – whilst in a fight with a “mini Army” that has a very limited arsenal of weapons. Is Iran seeing this for the first time – or have they known that this might happen?

    Anyway, Netanyahu is saying that it will take years to defeat Hamas, and the IDF is/was saying ‘eradicating the Hamas terror group as unattainable’. Yes, lots of confusion going on in Israel.

22. Karmi:

    Do you have any idea how tiny Israel is? And how much ammo they need to fight enemies on all sides?

    By the way, if you want to read a fairly comprehensive history of American military aid to Israel, see this.

    And I didn’t see any real contradiction between Netanyahu and what Hagari said about eliminating Hamas. It’s a matter of semantics. My sense of what Hagari was saying wasn’t that you couldn’t militarily kill a lot of Hamas members, but obviously there’s a “hearts and minds” component that must also be taken care of. Netanyahu is well aware of that.

    See this. And yes, as with most countries, there are political disagreements within Israel’s ranks.

23. Calibrated, partial abandonment:

    After hot rebuke of Netanyahu, US admits to cutting military shipments to Israel by 50%

24. “Biden” officially abandoned Israel in December 2016, with UN Resolution 2334.

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/choosing-not-to-veto-obama-lets-anti-settlement-resolution-pass-at-un-security-council

    All the rest, as Neo mentioned above, is meant to conceal this.

    Say what? The Democrats conceal things???

25. (To be sure, the REAL question is, at what point did “Biden” and “his” idealistic cohort, supported by a phenomenally corrupt media and infotech sector, decide to transform abandon the US…?
    …the answer to which should be pretty clear…)

26. Geoff B.: “The underlying factor in their [Obama and Biden] hostility is the ideological and political pressure from leftist NGOs.”

    Possibly for Biden but Obama has *always* hated Israel, just as he has always hated the United States.

27. No he doesnt he is blythfully unaware of many things now we fund the lebanese armed forces which essentially serves as hezbollahs proxy force

    That was the real reason they went after general flynn in part becausd of thar un resolution he was trying to get the russian ambassador to stay neutral name escaoes me now

28. Neo:

    Do you have any idea how tiny Israel is?

    It’s bigger than the Gaza Strip.

    Also bigger than the Vatican City, Monaco, Norfolk Island, Bermuda, Dominica, State of Palestine, Puerto Rico, Lebanon, Kosovo, Kuwait, Slovenia, and El Salvador. Israel is at 148 out of 195 countries in land size.

    I’ve commented here on how small Israel is – and have stated that Israel should let the Palestinians flee into Lebanon (smaller than Israel, BTW) or Syria, and then kill those who stayed in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Those lands belong to Israel, IMHO.

    Maybe I didn’t understand your question…I dunno. In my comment, I was hoping that Israel had a backup plan for munitions in case the US ever stopped supplying them. Maybe you missed my point…I dunno.

    And how much ammo they need to fight enemies on all sides?

    Egypt & Jordan are not enemies of Israel. Israel is running low on munitions fighting Hamas on a narrow strip of land about 25 miles long.

    Apparently Hamas had a backup plan in case they ran out of munitions – Iran Update, June 24, 2024

    Hamas is rebuilding its weapons production capacity in the Gaza Strip as part of a larger effort to reconstitute its military forces … Hamas is establishing small weapons manufacturing sites across the Gaza Strip in order to replenish its stockpiles of military equipment and weapons.

    Neo:

    And I didn’t see any real contradiction between Netanyahu and what Hagari said about eliminating Hamas. It’s a matter of semantics.

    Yes, verbal communications ain’t all it’s made out to be. However, during War Time press conferences it is best to skip the confusion of “semantics” in the message since it can lead to confusion. Anyway, I wrote “is/was saying” as a note to discrepancies in what the IDF was saying.

29. its a tiny country, compared to the land masses surrounding it to the West being Egypt to the East is Jordan to the North is Syria, all of those countries keep refugree camps on their land, never integrating them into the country, the crown princess, is a Bedouin of the right kind her family settled in Kuwait where she got a proper education, a generation later, many of her tribe, supported Saddam, we won’t revisit Black September and the push back that Arafat made, that claimed the Jordanian interior minister and ambassadors, as for Egypt, well Sadat was willing to cut those folk out the picture, the blind sheik and quaradawi who had bedouin roots retaliated, Mubarak held on for nearly 30 years with brute force and basta, (pull) until the Arab spring, sort of the same operation that they did to remove the Shah and impose the Ayatollahs, but the Military held on, and well were able to bring back some aspects of the old regime, Al Sisi is an artefact of that special relationship, who have a disdain for the Brotherhood,
    they were the primary rendition location re Al Queda operatives going back to the 90s and the Balkans, Suleiman the spy chief and future presidential candidate, was the bridge on those matters, there was a continuation with the Islamic state cell, the Lions of Fury, in the sinai that was crushed but no love for Israel, as pointed out tribal ties in the Sinai matter as much as border lines which are very arbitrary,
    in part because of bad blood between the regime during Obama and continued recently, they have oriented themselves back to Russia, the thing we had avoided 50 years ago, despite his Ft leavenworth training he can read the writings on the wall, as well as anyone,

    under Gorka and Phares, the Trump administration supported the Egyptian regime, you might say deep state, the current regime disdains it largely because Qatar is their rival along with Turkey the base of the Brotherhood, thats why I found it ironic that Menendez got caught double dipping,

    when needs must, Egypt flushes out the Hamas tunnels up to a point, but the Sinai tie insures that Hamas will not be permanently cut off, because reasons, so this is the double triple game Israel has to play,

30. @ miguel+cervantes

    Are you suggesting that Egypt & Jordan are enemies of Israel?

31. they aren’t really allies if you look at things closer, facts on the ground,

    the vaunted camp david deal for instance, well it was better than another war, or take the fact that a declared enemy like Meshaal in Amman, was allowed to seek sanctuary until after the failed attempt against him, Hamas says the silent thing aloud, whereas Fatah often does the reverse,

    take Sadat, as someone who had worked with the Nazis, against the British, who helped topple the Farouk regime, who welcomed some of these Nazis like the ones who worked on the Selwan rocket program against Israel for him to embrace their eternal enemy well that was a big step,

32. Karmi:

    You write that Israel is bigger than “the Vatican City, Monaco, Norfolk Island, Bermuda, Dominica, State of Palestine, Puerto Rico, Lebanon, Kosovo, Kuwait, Slovenia, and El Salvador. Israel is at 148 out of 195 countries in land size.”

    That is an irrelevant answer. The context of our discussion is that we were talking about whether Israel can supply its own armaments, and its partial dependence on the US in that regard. I missed the part where all those other countries are surrounded on nearly all sides by bigger countries trying to destroy it, and therefore needing to arm themselves to the teeth and have advanced air defenses besides because of constant attacks from its totally hostile neighbors.

    There is no State of Palestine, by the way. The Palestinians are basically the Jordanians and Egyptians who lived in the area known as Palestine, ruled by the British after taking over from the Ottoman Empire. When the land formerly known as Palestine was carved up into countries, Jordan was one of the countries created for the Arab population, and there also was a Palestine that the Palestinians rejected in favor of trying to destroy Israel with the help of its larger Arab neighbors.

    Egypt and Jordan are not enemies of Israel in the sense that Lebanon is, but they’re not what you’d call warm fuzzy friends, particularly Egypt. Egypt originally spearheaded some of the wars against Israel and made peace with it later, but Egypt enables Gazan terrorism big-time. They just don’t want the Gazans in their country. There are plenty of people in both Egypt and Jordan that are part of the Muslim Brotherhood and support what the Gazans have trying to do, and would like to overthrow their present governments in Egypt and Syria.

33. Neo:

    That is an irrelevant answer.

    Then why did you ask an irrelevant question?

    Anyway, you made a comment on my comment. Part of my comment was on the history of US Presidents who were drifting away from supporting Israel – Carter in a smaller way, then boom with Obama followed by Biden now. Israel should’ve had a backup plan for munitions after Obama, IMHO.

    Egypt & Jordan are not enemies of Israel, so Israel is not faced with “enemies on all sides” – which you had suggested earlier.

    If Biden wins again, then Israel looks unprepared for what is coming…

34. that rather succinctly summed up my posts,

    why don’t people know this, because the arab lobby, which owns much of the intellectual property in DC in Academia, first noted by stephen emerson, Daniel Pipes, then Robert Kaplan hides these inconvenient facts, the UAE the Kingdom and the emirate of Qatar in increasing order, for their own reasons, the first supported CAIR and the entire brotherhood infrastructure, they pushed many of the antiwar film, that made no money until zero dark thirty,
    then there was the mabhouh affair that minor
    Hamas official, who was operating out of Dubai’s Rotana hotel, brokering weapons with Iran, well they got exceedingly upset when the Israelis sent a hit team after him, the pretext was they were sloppy, well urgency is more important, the ones who lost the contest with Hamas, Jibroul and DAhlan despite all the toys that Langley lavished on them, settled in Dubai, they helped coordinate the Abraham Accords, which the deepstate tried to
    scuttle from the Getgo how solid those accords have proven to be, I have my doubts
    Kuwait has a smaller part but the Al Sabah’s have a funny way of showing gratitude for the effort the US engaged in the first Gulf War, among their more famous residents was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed technically a Baloch, one of those quarrelsome tribes that resides between Iran and Pakistan,

    yes they are, there is no power in point of the compass they can trust, Jordan showed its true face after October 7th and even more so after the Hospital bombing carried out by Islamic jihad, the puppet government, in Beirut held together by bailing wire and much US aid the same, behind the scenes, sotto voce they applaud Israel but where it counts
    out in the openthey further the narrative of Hamas, which would burn them to the ground if they had half a chance,

35. Karmi:

    Your irrelevant answer does not make my question irrelevant. My question was relevant – as should be obvious – to the issue of how much weaponry Israel needs and how large its resources to make said weapons on its own might be. Our discussion was not about countries’ relative sizes, per se.

    And did you read my response about Egypt and Jordan? I don’t think a friendly country lets terrorists dig an enormous network of tunnels from its territory to the terrorists’ territory in order to attack its neighbor (Israel). That’s Egypt, terrorist helper and enabler – as long as the terrorists don’t attack Egypt. Both Egypt and Jordan have leaders who are not attacking Israel, but Egypt is a huge factor in enabling Hamas to do so. And Jordan straddles the fence and has a large population MANY of whom are exceedingly hostile to Israel.

36. miguel+cervantes,

    My question was if you were suggesting they were enemies of Israel…not if the were “allies.” 🙂

37. Neo:

    What an “irrelevant” reply!?!?!?!?!

    Israel is in a War with the super *SUPER* tiny Gaza Strip and a “mini army” with a limited selection of munitions, and Israel is already running low on munitions.

    If I noticed the issues, then Israel’s true enemies have certainly noticed. What happens when someone much bigger goes to War with Israel?

    Again – Egypt & Jordan are not enemies of Israel in the same sense that America ain’t an enemy of Israel because we have anti-Israel protestors and Congress people and President.

38. Don’t feed the troll.

39. in the arab world, me against my brother, my brother against the clan, the clan against the tribe the tribe against the world, in the West we foolishly think lines on a map drawn up in 1921 or 1897 if you go the Durand line, are what matters, sothe tribes on either side of the durand line where peshawar or jalabad, matter more, the zadran clan which who the haqquanis are, same applies to other lands east of the Suez, people who should have known better like the British foreign office, often don’t realize this, so the Hashemites of the Hawazim and the Sauds of the Aneiza were never going to agree, the Sauds and the other tribes, of the Nejd northern region, and others to the South would agree in principle, the Brits should have remembered their experience with the Wahhabis in India and not supplied Ibn Saud, how does that work in the current day, the current crown prince is an ajman on his mother’s side, it would be charitable to say their relations with the Saud were as amiable as the Hatfields and the Mccoys, except the Hatfields never beheaded a McCoy, checks notes, and that happened twice in a 50 year period, of course Lowell Thomas’s account of Lawrence own conjurings is not helpful in resolving these issues

    interestingly ranulph fiennes uncle of M, has a new book about Lawrence and these matters,

40. Typical Progressive or MAGA comment, i.e., anyone not in lockstep with them is a “troll” … Jeez.

41. Pfft. You’re a troll Karmi. Pretty damned simple, really.

42. Ditto on the “Pfft,” and your ‘Feelings‘ get hurt more often than any Progressive I’ve ever seen…so to speak of the obvious.

43. admittedly Ranulph has some credibility issues of his own, his sort of memoir th Feather Men which was made into a remake of the killer elite, with jason statham in a lead role, might have invented somethings about his part in the Increment the SAS, in Oman in the early 70s, he alleged the UK government through these feathermen arranged the death of captain kealey, the hero of Mirbat, made it look like a training exercise, he had to pay a good chunk of money
    in a libel suit,

    if you persist in misunderstanding something no matter how many times it is explained to you, you might be a troll

44. Hey, miguel, you reckon Israel is “running low on ammunition” on account of the fight in Gaza, or is that some sort of paste-eating ignorance apt to be spread around by anyone who doesn’t actually give a damn to know what’s going on in Israel’s war with Iran and its multitude of proxy armies? Or what?

45. Israel is also at war with Iran at least who is the head of the snake Karmi. And who Biden is trying to finance. You’re not too bright but I’m sure you know at least that. So yes you are a troll.

46. Karmi:

    Do you really think that it’s Gaza that Israel’s at war with, and Gaza alone?

    Do you really think that fighting urban warfare is easy and doesn’t require much in terms of weaponry? It is asymmetrical warfare and it’s very difficult. Very. Plus, of course, Israel has to defend itself against rockets fired on a near-constant basis, for years.

    Hezbollah is well-armed and another aggressor. And then there’s Iran, in a class by itself and the head of it all at the moment.

    And let me spell it out very clearly: your reply about the size of other countries was irrelevant because they are not being attacked by neighbors. Therefore they don’t need anything like the armaments Israel needs.

    I’ve spent enough time on this, and if you don’t get what I’m saying at this point I can’t help you further.

47. they have committed their entire force including their reserves for the last eight months, we only used about a quarter of our forces in afghanistan and Iraq,their operational tempo has been higher,
    they have a smaller industrial plant on scale, they depend to a degree on Western sources, their scale of casualties up to scale is probably higher than the death toll we had at the peak of our expeditions,
    not to mention their casualties on october 7th, how loyal are their allies in the West,
    King Charles, has been well not terrible but not great either, Sunak hasn’t been terrible,
    Cameron well don’t get me started, Johnson has been better in exile, lets skip over the strawman’s regime, the new Dutch government is solid, with Wilder’s as guide, the Italian government reasonably so, after that crickets, they are facing an unspeakable eviland yet there are many hollow men, in the camel corps in academia et al,

48. And those worrying 2,000lb JDAM equipped bombs, miguel? That’s been all used up in Gaza? Or the Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow systems stuff needed to fend off the approaching bombardments from Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen? These aren’t Gaza troubles now are they? Yet these are some of the resupplies most concerning the IDF vis a vis US deliveries.

49. I don’t think so, but they have used x number for certain hvt, their iron dome can be overwhelmed then there’s the drone question, its rather striking in the hundreds of thousands of words expended, very little consideration is given

50. In regard to Netanyahu publicizing the 50% decline in US arms supply:
    I understand he has spent considerable time in the US, knows many US leaders and normal people, and thus has a very good understanding of the “American creed”, desire for liberty, and support for the “legitimate underdog”. Probably also politically astute enough to understand how info let out to “the People” via the media can still influence Americans, not just the haters but also those sympathetic to Israel. He may understand America better than Obama or Biden.

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