Pence blames ‘weakness shown by the Biden administration’ for violence in Israel

Former Vice President Mike Pence blasted President Biden in a new op-ed, blaming him for recent violence in Israel and condemning what he says is a dangerous lack of support for the U.S. ally. 

“Instead of seeking peace through strength, he has invited violence through weakness,” Pence wrote Monday in the National Review. “Every tepid statement uttered by the Biden-Harris administration is built on a false equivalency between Israel and Hamas.” 

“There is no moral equivalency between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas,” Pence wrote. “President Biden and every American leader should uphold Israel’s right to self-defense and condemn the terrorists of Hamas — as well as their supporters and apologists — in the strongest possible terms.”

Some Democrats have criticized recent airstrikes by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip that have killed an estimated 200 Palestinians. Republicans and defenders of Israel like Pence say the strikes are a necessary retaliation for deadly attacks carried out against the Jewish state by Hamas. 

Biden on Monday approved the sale of $735 million worth of precision-guided weapons to Israel, a move some Democrats have rejected. 

Pence in the op-ed credited former President Trump for his administration negotiating peace deals in the Middle East. He claimed that Biden’s policies toward Israel have unraveled that work, describing them as being a continuation of the Obama-era policies in the region, which Republicans have long decried.  

“He has replaced strength with weakness, moral clarity with confusion, and loyalty with betrayal,” Pence wrote of Biden. “Biden’s void, too, is being filled by America’s enemies — and Israelis are paying the price in blood.”