Biden will fund research in China, not Israel

Communist virus research is fine, not Jewish doctors helping autistic children.

By Daniel Greenfield, Front Page Magazine

In May 2023, the Biden administration restarted a National Institutes of Health grant to an organization that had been conducting bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology believed by many to be the source of the recent pandemic.

The Trump administration had originally halted the funding over concerns that it had contributed to experiments that were considered to represent ‘gain of function’ and had the potential to be weaponized by the Chinese military. To add insult to injury, taxpayers may have also paid twice for the grants. But the Biden administration has restarted the bat virus grant with the EcoHealth Alliance despite concerns raised by prominent researchers and journalists.

The United States has spent tens of millions of dollars funding research in China so that even beyond the military and espionage elements, we are backing our own biggest rivals.

Academic Boycott of Judea and Samaria

In June 2023, the Biden administration reversed another Trump research mandate, this time cutting off scientific cooperation with Israeli institutions of higher learning on territory that it deems should be turned over to the PLO, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other ‘Palestinian’ groups.

The primary victim of this policy will be Ariel University and researchers there.

The Biden boycott was only revealed when researchers at Ariel University were turned down. The State Department then declared that in a complete reversal of Trump administration policy, “participation in joint projects with Israel in the fields of science and technology in areas that came under its control after June 5, 1967” was “not consistent with American policy.” That would potentially include not only Ariel University, but also parts of Jerusalem.

While the names of the researchers involved have not been made public, Ariel University has many talented people working on a wide variety of problems like Dr. Michal Hochhauser who is working to help autistic children integrate better into society and Konstantin Borodianskiy, PhD who is investigating how to coat titanium implants, like those used in hip replacement surgery, with natural materials so that they bond more securely with bones in surgical patients.

The U.S-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) encompasses BARD research on agriculture and BIRD research on industrial R&D including homeland security applications to counter terrorists. The Biden administration’s boycott of Ariel University and other researchers and facilities located in those parts of Israel claimed by terrorists cuts them out of the program.

While the Trump administration was unwilling to finance bat virus research in China, but was willing to work with Ariel University on medical, agricultural and national security research, the Biden administration will fund research in China, but not Israeli work on helping autistic kids..

During a better time, Ambassador David Friedman had joined Prime Minister Netanyahu at Ariel University to announce that the “geographic restrictions”, as they had persisted during the Obama administration and past administrations, “no longer comport with our foreign policy” of viewing Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, known to some as the West Bank as “inconsistent with international law.”

Deleting a single sentence, Ambassador Friedman revealed, was anything but simple and required “an inter-agency process with numerous branches of Government.”

“We are righting an old wrong and strengthening yet again the unbreakable bond between our two countries,” he declared. Now Biden has brought back the wrong and broken the bond.

The United States obviously isn’t obligated to conduct any kind of cooperative research with foreign countries, and yet choosing China over Israel is highly revealing of the real agenda.

Double Standard

The Biden administration has refused to ban funding for research in the People’s Republic of China, but has chosen to ban it, no matter how benevolent, in parts of the Jewish state. Democrat administrations are willing to fund dangerous viral research in China, but not explore ways to teach autistic children to cope with the challenges of their environment in Israel.

Gain of function research that creates deadly viruses in one of the world’s most ruthless nations was fine, but bonding hip implants to bones in one of our closest allies is beyond the pale.

Even the Department of Defense has funded research in Hong Kong which is under the control of Communist China. The CDC and NIH have funded research at Chinese universities in Beijing, Shanghai, and Najiing with no interest in the legitimacy of the Communist regime’s control over these territories or the legitimacy of the regime. But when it comes to Israel, Democrat administrations scruple over who has the right to the land that the university is on.

The Communist regime’s right to rule China is not contestable, but Israel’s right to its country is.

Unlike Communist China, Israel is run by a democratically elected government. Ariel University is located in the city of Ariel and has a student body of over 10,000. The city of Ariel, also known as the capital of Samaria, is built near the ruins of an ancient 3,000 year old Israelite city. No Arab Islamic colony had ever existed on the site. The graves of Joshua, the leader of the original Jewish return to Israel, and of Caleb, the other righteous biblical scout, lie near Ariel.

And yet the Biden administration considers the Communist Chinese regime to be more legitimate than the scientific researchers living and working in Ariel.

“The State Department is telling the entire U.S. government not to cooperate with Jews in Judea and Samaria. And of course it was sent to Congress in secret, and only revealed because reporters found out. “The Biden administration defends funding scientific research in Wuhan with the Chinese Communist Party, but they’re discriminating against and banning cooperation with Jews based on where they live,” Senator Ted Cruz said.

“The ZOA condemns the Biden administration’s reinstatement of a discriminatory, antisemitic boycott of research, development, science and technology cooperation and joint projects with Israel, in lawful Jewish areas that invading Arab nations seized from the Jewish people in 1948-1949, which Israel recaptured and liberated in the defensive 1967 war,” Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein stated.

The Biden administration has made it clear that it is more open to scientific cooperation with the ruthless regime of Communist China than the Jews of Ariel.

Ariel UniversityBiden AdministrationChinaJoe Biden