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Will Biden’s Patience Run Out?
US President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address at the US Capitol, March 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
JNS.org – A U.S. president’s State of the Union address is always a festive event, but this year the speech was different. Along with the need to disabuse people of the growing claims that he was too old to serve another term as president, Joe Biden had to contend with the explosive issue of Gaza.
Even before the speech, pro-Palestinian protesters, who called him “Genocide Joe,” delayed his way to the Capitol building. Inside, the Palestinian-American lawmaker Rashida Tlaib came to the evening wrapped in a keffiyeh, while above her, in the visitors’ gallery, sat the released hostage Mia Schem, along with the families of Israelis still being held by Hamas.
The speech came after weeks in which the president and his senior staff had repeatedly accused Israel of indiscriminately bombing Gaza, treating its civilian population inhumanely, and causing the death of “too many Palestinians.”
Such accusations are blatantly unfounded and support those who accuse Israel of war crimes. They also helped convince Hamas chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar that he just needs to hold out because ultimately the president will demand a ceasefire.
The president did not retract any of these accusations, but rather doubled down on them and referred to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as “gut-wrenching.” Israel also has a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza,” he declared, earning the evening’s loudest applause.
He warned Israel not to use aid to Palestinian civilians as bargaining chips and said 30,000 have died—the figure quoted by Hamas. Therefore, Biden stressed, the administration was working relentlessly to achieve a ceasefire and ensure the release of the captives.
What are the key takeaways for Israel?
The U.S. military will build a “floating pier” to bring food and aid to Gaza by sea, but without deploying American troops on the ground. The question of how these shipments will reach the residents was left unanswered.
On the other hand, on the pro-Israel side, the president reiterated Hamas’s crimes and Israel’s right to defend itself. While Biden’s criticism of Israel satisfied the progressives in his party and Arab and Muslim Americans, it seems his statements supporting Israel helped assuage an equal number of Israel supporters.
What can be inferred from Biden’s speech? Despite the administration’s efforts to provide ammunition to the IDF and prevent the U.N. from imposing a ceasefire on Israel—gestures that have been politically costly to Biden—the administration’s patience with Israel is wearing thin.
The administration in Washington is not one person, it’s thousands who could lose their livelihoods due to the president’s support for Israel. It is quite possible that if the fighting expands to Rafah, the president will decide to significantly reduce military aid to Israel and even demand a ceasefire.
Therefore, Israel must continue to work to debunk the administration’s false claims and continue to explain to the world that the meaning of a ceasefire is a victory for terror and a death blow to Israel. Most important—the IDF must continue fighting until Hamas’s total defeat, even, if necessary, with stones and sticks.
Michael Oren is a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
The post Will Biden’s Patience Run Out? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Shifts One of Two Aircraft Carriers Away From Middle East
The world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford steams alongside USNS Laramie (T-AO-203) during a fueling-at-sea in the eastern Mediterranean Sea in this photo taken on Oct. 11, 2023 and released by the US Navy on Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: US Naval Forces Central Command / US 6th Fleet / Handout via REUTERS
One of two US aircraft carrier strike groups deployed to the Middle East in part to deter Iran from carrying out a threatened attack against Israel has departed the region, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
The decision to end the dual-carrier presence came nearly three weeks after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group to remain in the Middle East, even after the arrival of the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group to replace it.
The Roosevelt has now departed the Middle East and is headed to the Asia-Pacific region, Major General Patrick Ryder, a Pentagon spokesperson, told a news briefing.
Austin’s order for the Roosevelt to stay in place came on Aug. 25, as Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel and Israel‘s military said it struck Lebanon with around 100 jets to thwart a larger attack, in one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare.
Officials have been concerned that Iran might make also good on its threats to carry out an attack against Israel over the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran in July.
Ryder played down the idea that the United States was no longer concerned about potential Iranian action and said the decision was based on the Navy’s fleet management.
“Iran has indicated that they want to retaliate against Israel. And so we’re going to continue to take that threat very seriously,” Ryder told reporters at the Pentagon.
Iran has vowed a severe response to the July killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which took place as he visited Tehran and which it blamed on Israel. Israel has neither confirmed or denied its involvement.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has been seeking to limit the fallout from the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel, now approaching its one-year anniversary. The conflict has leveled huge swathes of Gaza, triggered border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group and drawn in Yemen’s Houthis.
“We remain intensely focused on working with regional partners to de-escalate tensions and deterring a wider regional conflict,” Ryder said.
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Toronto police charge three people at UJA event protest—while more cops find themselves assaulted
Protests also occurred at multiple screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The post Toronto police charge three people at UJA event protest—while more cops find themselves assaulted appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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SUNY Purchase President Steps Down Amid Backlash Over Handling of Anti-Israel Protests, Campus Antisemitism
SUNY Purchase College President Milagros Peña attends the 52nd annual commencement at Westchester County Center in White Plains, New York, May 17, 2024. Photo: USA TODAY NETWORK via Reuters Connect
State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase president Milagros Peña will leave office at the end of this academic year, ending a four-year tenure that was derailed by pro-Hamas demonstrations on the campus.
According to The Journal News, Peña announced her “retirement” in a letter to the campus community and further discussed the decision at a convocation event held earlier this month.
“After considerable reflection and discussion about what is best for me and my family, I informed Chancellor [John B. King, Jr.] over the summer that this 2024-2025 academic year will be my last year as president,” Peña wrote, according to excerpts of the letter shared by the local news outlet. “I have mixed emotions about my decision to retire as president after the spring semester, because, though we still face challenges as a community, we have accomplished a great deal together and our shared mission of providing access to a high quality, transformative public education is as important as ever.”
Appointed to office 2020, Peña became a target of far-left faculty last academic year when she authorized the clearing of an illegal “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” which, the school’s newspaper reported at the time, led to clashes between law enforcement and pro-Hamas students who refused to obey orders to leave the area. An estimated 70 students were arrested, The Phoenix Purchase has said, and at least one professor was detained for obstructing justice.
However, Peña was inconsistent as a policy maker. In an account of her responses to campus antisemitism published by The Algemeiner on Wednesday, SUNY Purchase alumna Esti Heller said the president ignored numerous supplications for increased security for Jewish life on campus after Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Peña was unresponsive, even after someone vandalized an Israeli flag and desecrated a sukkah, a hut built for the Jewish festival of Sukkot. Later, Peña reversed course in her handling of the pro-Hamas protesters, Heller said, acceding to their demands for “ethical investing,” amnesty for students charged with violating the code of conduct, and public disclosure of the school’s financial decisions.
Ultimately, Peña lost a no-confidence vote on June 3 in which 87 percent of the voting faculty called for her to leave office.
“While disappointed by the resolution, I am committed to continuing to take part in conversations with stakeholders on and off campus about many of the issues raised and look forward to engaging with the faculty, staff, and students about our shared goals and the best way of moving forward as a community,” Peña told the Purchase following the vote.
Now, three months later, Peña has granted faculty their wish, becoming the third university president in New York State this year to leave office after being criticized for mismanaging a series of crises, antisemitic incidents, and riotous demonstrations. Last month, Minouche Shafik resigned as president of Columbia University after her administration’s credibility crumbled amid revelations of antisemitic conversations between administrators and a partisan investigation of a pro-Israel professor. In May, Cornell University president Martha Pollack resigned after weeks of convulsive protests and disruptions on campus caused by mobs of pro-Hamas students and faculty.
In Wednesday’s announcement, Peña pledged to make her final months in office productive.
“We still have a lot to do before I step away, and I look forward to working together to ensure that Purchase College continues to thrive,” she said. “While there are challenges ahead, I feel confident that we have the flexibility, the skills, and the determination to continue to provide an excellent education for our students and to make progress as an institution that is continually evolving, while safeguarding our community and living up to our values during this extraordinary time.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post SUNY Purchase President Steps Down Amid Backlash Over Handling of Anti-Israel Protests, Campus Antisemitism first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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