Joe Biden is holding up arms shipments to Israel, trying to get them to stop their move on Rafah.
As we reported, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told him to lump it, that they're going to finish Hamas off, even if they have to do it alone, and that they have the arms they need to do the job. So basically they're thumbing their noses at Biden's threat and saying it isn't going to stop them from protecting themselves and their people, and finishing off the terrorists, and ending the war.
Why Biden would do this — essentially helping Hamas — right at this pivotal point is concerning. It appears political, to help his fortunes with the left and in places like Michigan, that he desperately needs to hold onto for the election.
What makes Biden's threat even more concerning is what he's doing at the same time.
Less than a day before the Biden administration announced its intent to cut off U.S. arms sales to Israel, it issued a sanctions waiver to bypass congressional prohibitions on arms sales to a host of Arab nations that boycott the Jewish state, including Hamas ally Qatar and Iran-controlled Lebanon, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
On Tuesday—just a day before President Joe Biden threatened to withhold key weapons deliveries from Israel if the country moves forward with an incursion in the Gaza Strip's Rafah neighborhood—the State Department informed Congress that it intends to bypass laws that bar the United States from selling weapons to nations that boycott Israel, according to a copy of the notification obtained by the Free Beacon.
The Biden administration, which has waived these sanctions in the past, said in the notification that it intends to extend the waiver through April 30, 2025, allowing weapons to be sent to a host of nations that work closely with the Hamas terror group and other Iran-backed terror proxies.
So not only is he threatening them by holding up weapons, he's providing weapons to their enemies, including Lebanon where they have Iran terror proxies who are even now attacking Israel.
While one might argue that he's trying to appeal to the left to help his political fortunes, this does nothing but hurt our ally and embolden terrorists. There isn't even the gross, disgusting political excuse to cover him here of trying to appease leftists, by arguing to stop the action in Rafah.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) blasted this action.
"The Biden administration's policy toward Israel and around the world is to punish our allies and boost our enemies," Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told the Free Beacon after reviewing the sanctions waiver. "They have sanctioned Israel and imposed an arms embargo. Meanwhile they've spent hundreds of millions pouring aid into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, dismantled sanctions on Iran, and now are suspending congressional restrictions to send weapons to Israel's enemies such as Qatar and Lebanon."
It just keeps getting worse and worse with Biden.