If the United States imposes sanctions on a unit of ally Israel’s Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), it would be a victory of the radical Left that infests the Joe Biden administration. Apart from being unprecedented, the move would strengthen the jihadist and anti-American elements in the Middle East. According to a news report, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to within days announce sanctions against the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion for human rights violations in the West Bank.
Israel is understandably upset. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers have slammed the US plans. The Netzah Yehuda battalion, comprising religious and Ultra-Orthodox Jews, was raised in 1999. “Sanctions must not be imposed on the Israel Defense Forces!” Netanyahu posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
On the face of it, this development seems unexpected, for Israel is widely known as an ally of the US. A close look at President Biden’s support base, however, would make it clear that the action against the IDF battalion may not be surprising. The Democratic Party, which is in power, is increasingly moving Leftward, which means it is embracing Leftist doctrines and dogmas which are anathema to liberty, fairness, and capitalism—the defining features of America.
A number of Democratic lawmakers have been campaigning for ceasefire by Israel which launched an attack after Hamas butchered around 1,200 people in the October 7 terror strike last year. “We process pain, deprivation and cruelty personally, having either encountered it in our current lives or having had historical connections to it with our ancestors,” said Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, who was one of the co-sponsors of the ceasefire resolution.
“For Democrats in Congress and in liberal groups in Washington, pressure to oppose Mr. Biden’s Israel policy is bubbling up from younger, more progressive staff members who have grown up in an environment more doubtful about Israel,” The New York Times reported on October 28. “Hundreds of former staff members who worked for the presidential campaigns of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts this week signed open letters urging them to introduce a similar ceasefire resolution in the Senate.”
Then there were Democratic senators urging a “humanitarian pause.” Other progressive lawmakers, however, argue that such a pause does not go far enough, the NYT reported.
Younger staff members of MoveOn, the liberal activist group that endorsed Biden in April, “revolted after the organization issued an initial statement condemning the Hamas attack,” the report said. In other words, these members even refuse to condemn Hamas’ barbarity.
In such a milieu, it is hardly surprising that Biden and his officials are repeatedly adopting anti-Israel stances. It matters little to them that their stances are against American interests in the region. If they can sacrifice their own country’s interests for electoral gains, they will not hesitate for a moment to stab Israel in the back.