Now more than ever, Israel deserves unequivocal, unwavering support

The barbaric and unprovoked slaughter of more than 1,300 Israelis, including infants and Holocaust survivors, by Hamas terrorists is unlike anything the Jewish State or the Jewish people have experienced in recent history. The nation of Israel — and the entire Middle East — will never be the same. 

This conflict is a major test not only for Israel — which it has thus far met with unwavering unity and resolve, with 360,000 army reservists mobilized for the Israeli Defense Forces — but also for the United States and especially for President Biden.  

And while the U.S. and Israel must reckon with how two of the world’s most vaunted intelligence services missed signs of Hamas’s preparation, finger-pointing will have to wait until after this war ends. It is especially important that right now, Israeli society remains united, something the government has acknowledged with the positive step of forming a unity government between Prime Minister Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz. In the coming days, we hope Yair Lapid, another opposition leader, will join. 

For the United States, continued support for Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East and the region’s only democracy, is critical. Not only do the victims of Hamas’s attack include at least 29 American citizens, but American Jews are now facing unprecedented threats of violence here at home. 

Further, it would be a mistake to view this as an isolated attack on the Jewish state and its people. It is also an attack on the freedoms that the United States and Israel were founded on and an attack on the free world itself. The dictatorial Iranian regime — which is closely aligned with the autocratic governments of Russia and China — has funded Hamas for years, and reportedly played a major role in this sadistic assault. 

To his credit, President Biden has met the moment thus far. He has voiced unequivocal support for Israel’s right to defend itself “full stop,” and has forcefully condemned Hamas’s actions as “terrorism” and “pure, unadulterated evil.”  

Going forward, while American soldiers will not be sent to the Gaza Strip, Israel will rely on the U.S. for the replenishment of ammunition, diplomatic breathing room and credible threats of military action against Iran and its proxies.  

The U.S. deploying a carrier strike group to the region as a warning is a good start but is just that. Given the enormity of this threat and the risk of the war widening, the U.S. must unequivocally warn Iran, the Lebanese government and Hezbollah that any incursions into northern Israel will be met with devastating retaliation on Lebanese soil. 

Most importantly, the Biden administration must accept that any chance of a renewed nuclear deal with Iran no longer exists, as it is now clearer than ever that the Iranian regime must only be confronted, not appeased.  

Whether or not Tehran officially helped plan or greenlit this specific attack is less relevant than the decades of support it has lent to Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist proxies. Tehran has funded, trained and supported Hamas and Hezbollah for more than two decades, and Iranian-backed militias reportedly held an online meeting in March in which Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, warned all attendees of a coming war with Israel of unprecedented size and scope.  

Moreover, aside from Iran’s historical pledge to “annihilate” Israel, Tehran stands to reap the benefits of the reported freezing of progress towards a historic peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would have transformed the region. Simply put, the Iranian government’s fingerprints are all over these attacks, and they cannot go unpunished. 

The images and videos that were released during and after Hamas’s attack should end any ambitions for a new accord with Tehran. 

On one side of a split screen, Americans saw shocking footage of Israeli teenage girls being paraded through the streets of Gaza, infants killed and set on fire in a Kibbutz, and Holocaust survivors being taken hostage; on the other side, we saw the Iranian parliament cheering, reiterating their support for a “proud operation” and celebrating a “Palestinian victory.”  

Domestically, Biden will face several challenges in the coming weeks as the fighting between Israel and Hamas intensifies: the rising anti-Israel sentiment on the political left and the powerful anti-institutional extremists on the political right, who have left the U.S. Congress without a Speaker of the House, halting all government activity with no end in sight, including official aid to Israel.  

To address congressional paralysis, both parties must display leadership and overcome the extreme fringes in both caucuses. It is essential that Republicans and Democrats unite to give Speaker pro tempore Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) the ability to pass legislation supporting both Israel and Ukraine, which will need further U.S. aid in the coming weeks and months. 

This will require an increase in our defense budget, and a subsequent increase in our capacity to support both Israel and Ukraine, which is still just a fraction of our overall defense budget. War is costly, but allowing our adversaries to exploit our political dysfunction during the defining struggle of our times is even costlier. 

With respect to the former problem, Israel’s retaliation — while entirely justified — is expected to result in a considerable loss of Palestinian lives in Gaza, despite Israel’s best efforts to avoid this. The Israel Defense Forces takes unprecedented steps to avoid civilian casualties, even issuing a warning Israel on Friday calling on roughly 1.1 million Gazans to flee south. 

Make no mistake, the blame for this loss of life falls squarely on Hamas, which not only invaded Israel and slaughtered innocents, but uses its own people as human shields, placing weapons and command centers inside schools, residential areas and hospitals, and setting up roadblocks to prevent Gazans heeding Israel’s warning. 

Still, this distinction will not matter to the pro-Palestinian progressive left, whose outrage over Israel’s actions, which in many cases is nothing more than cloaked antisemitism, is already intensifying. 

New York Times columnist Brett Stephens described “giddiness and gloating” in the crowd at a Pro-Palestine rally in Manhattan this week, “as if someone’s team had won the World Cup. Hamas had perpetrated the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and the crowd was euphoric.”  

This was not an isolated incident. A Black Lives Matter chapter in Chicago tweeted a picture of a paraglider — a reference to the Hamas paragliders who flew into Israeli communities and butchered more than 1,000 innocents — with the words, “I stand with Palestine.” 

At multiple colleges, including Harvard, Yale and George Washington University, progressive student groups released statements holding Israel responsible for Hamas’s actions, held vigils for Palestinian “martyrs” and a disgusting incident at Stanford, where a professor made his Jewish students stand in a corner then berated them, saying “Colonizers killed more than 6 million [people]. Israel is a colonizer.” 

Even more disturbingly, two progressives in Congress, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) released written statements calling Israel an “apartheid state” and calling on the U.S. to cut funding to Israel, a response that was rightly met with swift condemnation by other Democrats. 

Prominent progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) did denounce the pro-Hamas rally in her city, but also demanded “an immediate cease-fire and de-escalation.” To be clear, calling for a ceasefire before Israel has had time to effectively destroy Hamas in Gaza is tantamount to letting terrorists off the hook for their crimes against humanity. 

The glorification of Hamas terrorists seeking the genocide of Jews with a messianic zeal is, for now, only concentrated on the far-left. However, as Israel’s military campaign in Gaza continues, and Hamas gleefully sacrifices its own citizens to further its cause, Biden will need to address the very real possibility that anti-Israel sentiment grows within his own ranks.  

To that point, while the far-left has certainly been the most vocally anti-Israel, former President Donald Trump’s recent comments mocking Netanyahu and Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, calling them “jerks,” and praising Hezbollah for being “smart” are deeply unhelpful. One would hope that Trump, who did very positive things for Israel and is seeking another four years as president, would rise to the occasion and support Israel wholeheartedly. 

It is difficult to overstate the enormity of this crisis. As the full force of the Israeli military prepares for an unprecedented defense of that country, the fate of the Jewish state, the future of the free world and the legacy of President Biden all hang in the balance.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. His new book is “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.” Saul Mangel is a senior strategist at Schoen Cooperman Research.