‘End of the war’ in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran? Not quite yet

Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas massacre, and has not stopped since.

By Guy Millière, Gatestone Institute

October 17. Israeli authorities announce that Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, the man who planned and ordered the atrocities of October 7, 2023 and the hostage-taking that accompanied them, has been eliminated.

In the hours that followed, US President Joe Biden said that Sinwar had been an “insurmountable obstacle” and that his death offered “the opportunity… for a political settlement” in Gaza.

A short time later, US Vice President Kamala Harris said that it was now possible to “finally end the war in Gaza.”

This is not the first time the Biden-Harris administration has spoken of “political settlement” in Gaza and the possibility to “end the war in Gaza.”

It has, in fact, been putting pressure on Israel for months to end the conflict. Both Biden and Harris, earlier, also insisted that the Israeli military not enter Rafah, where weapons were being smuggled into Gaza from Egypt through at least 20 massive cross-border tunnels.

Had Israel complied with the Biden-Harris administration’s request and not gone into Rafah, Sinwar would still be preparing the next massacres and making sure that Hamas keeps stealing the humanitarian aid intended for the people of Gaza.

When the IDF killed him, just a mile from the Egyptian border, he was found carrying a large sum of money and the passport of a man described as an “UNRWA teacher.”

On October 29, after it was disclosed that members of UNRWA were among those who had participated in the Oct 7 massacre, and that, instead of remaining neutral as expected of a UN body, UNRWA had been acting as an extension of Hamas, the Israeli government unanimously voted to ban the organization.

Many employees of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip, it appeared, are or were members of Hamas, and UNRWA schools in Gaza are and were being used as storage facilities for Hamas’s explosives and weapons, as well as indoctrinating young Gazans to violence against Israel and hatred of Jews.

In response, UN Secretary General António Guterres, reportedly “furious,” sent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a letter threatening to “initiate a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice,” but omitting any “mention of UNRWA’s documented ties to Palestinian terror organizations, including Hamas, which sparked the legislation Guterres denounced.”

Guterres lamented that it would deprive Palestinian children of education, but if the education includes jihadi “hate and antisemitism,” for some reason that fails to seem a great loss.

The Biden-Harris administration has continued to support UNRWA, and is currently pressuring Israel to provide Gaza with more humanitarian aid.

Last month, the Biden-Harris administration falsely accused Israel of cutting off aid deliveries to Gaza – never mind that the Israelis might not have been enormously eager to resupply a terrorist group dedicated to killing them — and demanded that Israel resume allowing into Gaza items, some of which could possibly be used for terror.

The Biden-Harris administration added that if Israel refused, the IDF could lose access to U.S. weapons The administration, it seems, is trying to appear “evenhanded” as if both sides should win.

Hamas continues to steal the humanitarian aid (as here and here) and then sells it on the black market at extortionate prices, from which Hamas has “profited by at least half a billion dollars.”

Approximately 200 trucks of aid enter Gaza every day, yet the media report that Gazans are “starving” and that the blame for the supposed “war crime” goes, of course, to — Israel.

The Biden-Harris administration appears, similarly, not to want the defeat of a second Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, a terrorist group which has taken over Lebanon.

Hezbollah began attacking Israel on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas massacre, and has not stopped since.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to leave their homes in Israel’s north.

Biden-Harris administration envoy Amos Hochstein even suggested that Israel, smaller than the state of New Jersey, should give land to Lebanon and redraw its own border.

Israel’s response, after weakening Hamas, was eliminate Hezbollah’s senior leadership in a few airstrikes and remotely detonate handheld pagers which Hezbollah had given its terrorists.

Israel took the precaution of informing the Biden-Harris administration only shortly before the assassinations of Hezbollah’s terrorist leader, Hassan Nasrallah and its senior leadership.

At least the administration was able to announce that “the United States was not involved” in the incident.

Biden described Nasrallah’s killing as a “measure of justice”, but immediately followed the remark by calling on Israel not to launch a ground offensive into southern Lebanon. “We should have a ceasefire now,” Biden said.

Israel, seemingly aware that the destruction of Hezbollah’s installations would necessitate a ground campaign, entered South Lebanon anyhow, calling on UNIFIL personnel to avoid harm by withdrawing northward.

Under UN Security Council Resolution 1701, the UN peacekeeping agency, UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) had a mandate to stop Hezbollah from entering southern Lebanon.

Unable to do so, UNIFIL was now refusing to leave. Perhaps someone — Hamas or the leadership at the UN — thought that UNIFIL might be a useful human shield to prevent Israel from entering Lebanon altogether.

When a reporter asked Biden: “Are you asking Israel to stop hitting UN peacekeepers?” Biden replied, “Absolutely, positively.”

Biden could have reminded the reporter that UN peacekeepers were not what Israel was targeting and that he supported Israel’s request for them to withdraw, but he did not.

The Biden administration also pressed Israel, after Iran attacked the country with drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles in April, not to retaliate.

The Iranian regime, Israel’s main enemy in the Middle East, does not make a secret of wanting to wipe Israel off the map.

Israel, possibly to accommodate US wishes, limited itself to striking an air-defense system at an airfield in Isfahan.

When however, Iran attacked Israel again on October 1 and launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israeli targets, Israel replied with an all-night attack.

Due to apparent treachery, the Israeli strike was delayed. US intelligence documents on Israel’s preparations for the strike on Iran appeared on a Telegram account linked to Iran.

The leak seemed to have come from a source within the US intelligence community. As Israel again had evidently not informed Biden-Harris administration of its plans, the documents presumably could only have come from US espionage activities carried out on Israel.

The Biden-Harris administration has claimed that it is investigating the matter. Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris administration has kept at the Pentagon people who have access to classified documents and links to Iran’s regime who should have been removed long ago but were not.

The disclosure of elements obtained by espionage carried out against an ally of the United States to an enemy of the ally of the United States is an act of treason.

On October 26, Israel finally responded to the Iran’s October 1 attack. The Israel Air Force struck military targets inside Iran , but, as the Biden-Harris administration had requested, left nuclear facilities and oil installations untouched.

Although devastating for Iran, the assault may not have been strong enough to deter the regime from launching further attacks on Israel. and certainly, will not deter Iran from advancing its nuclear weapons program.

The Biden-Harris administration, perhaps because of its new “two-state solution: Michigan and Minnesota,” seems not to want Israel to win , and does want Hamas and Hezbollah to survive.

Both terrorist groups have the same goal as Iran — Israel’s obliteration — and Hezbollah has even greater destructive capabilities than Hamas.

The Iranian regime, which has openly wanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” for 45 years, is reportedly only “one to two weeks” away from completing its nuclear weapons program – while the Biden- Harris administration appears to be doing all it can to protect Iran.

The US administration claims that it does not want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but has done nothing to stop it.

Not only that, but by waiving sanctions that block Iran from selling its oil, the Biden-Harris administration has effectively been funding Iran’s nuclear weapons program to the tune of roughly $100 billion. In 2024, Iran’s petroleum exports reached new heights.

Former President Barack Obama, as recalled in an article, “The Realignment”, by Michael Doran and Tony Badran, had put in place a policy ostensibly intended for Iran to be a “balancing power” to Israel, and to reduce “American support for Israel” and the Sunni Arab countries.

Former President Donald Trump has replaced that policy with one of “maximum pressure” on Iran, accompanied by strengthening the relationship between Israel and the Sunni Arab world.

His policy led to the Abraham Accords, the greatest advance towards peace in the Middle East in seven decades.

The Biden administration, nonetheless, returned to the pro-Iran policies of Obama. The results have been appalling.

Iran evidently used at least some of the windfall from the Biden-Harris administration to rearm all its proxies: Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

What followed was Hamas’s massacre of October 7, 2023; the intensive daily bombing of Israel by Hezbollah, and, in a show of gratitude for America’s generosity, more than 160 attacks on US troops in the Middle East, just in one year.

Add to that, the Houthis, which Secretary of State Antony Blinken had removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations a few weeks after Biden’s inauguration, demonstrated its appreciation by closing off virtually all maritime traffic in the Red Sea.

The Biden-Harris administration, by preserving these questionable actors — not only by preserving the Iranian regime but facilitating its advance towards nuclear weapons — is going well beyond “reducing American support for Israel.”

The Biden-Harris administration has placed America, Iran’s “Great Satan,” in a terrible situation. Iran’s regime has apparently felt sufficiently emboldened to organize hit squads inside the US to assassinate former US officials, Iranian dissidents and even the current presidential candidate, Trump.

As early as November 2022, a year before the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, the Biden-Harris administration helped to destabilize Netanyahu’s government, by financing protests to weaken it; and has seemingly been trying to destabilize Netanyahu’s government to this day.

Harris refused to attend an address given by Prime Minister Netanyahu before the US Congress on July 24, 2024.

She received Netanyahu coldly the next day and then accused Israel of being responsible for “the death of far too many innocent civilians,” adding that “I will not be silent.”

On September 28, after a speech at George Mason University in Virginia, Harris agreed with a student who accused Israel of “genocide”. The student’s “truth,” she stated, “should not be suppressed,.”

On October 19, when a man wearing a keffiyeh spoke about Israel being genocidal, “What he’s talking about,” she said, “it’s real, I respect his voice”.

Journalist Elliot Kaufman wrote:

“Ms. Harris repeats the Obama line: ‘All options are on the table.’ Mr. Trump offers sanctions enforcement with a more credible deterrent.

After Iran’s Oct. 1 missile attack, Mr. Biden told Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear program. Mr. Trump replied, ‘Isn’t that what you’re supposed to hit? It’s the biggest risk we have, nuclear weapons.’ He reportedly told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, ‘Do what you have to do’…

“The war won’t go on forever. Mr. Trump, too, says Israel should ‘finish up,’ reportedly by Inauguration Day. But on whose terms? He tells Israel to do what it needs to do to end the war quickly in victory. Ms. Harris piles on restrictions and insists a cease-fire lead to a two-state solution disconnected from reality…

“Now, as the ICC expands and abuses its powers to attack Israel, and Unrwa is exposed as compromised by Hamas, Mr. Biden blocks new sanctions against the ICC and tries to preserve Unrwa.”

Which will Americans vote for this week? The policies of Trump or the policies of Biden and Obama?

AlliesBiden AdministrationelectionsIranNuclear weapons