On Monday, word got out that Joe Biden is planning to visit Israel this week as some sort of gesture of his unwavering support for the Jewish State. Is this really supposed to impress us? Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin went to Israel last week, and it’s no secret that the United States publicly supports Israel, so why is Joe Biden going to the country in the middle of a war?
“He’s coming here at a critical moment for Israel, for the region, and for the world,” Blinken said Monday during a brief press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
We’ve seen this kind of public relations stunt before. Earlier this year, Biden visited Ukraine, and the media made a big thing about how brave he was walking the streets of Kyiv, even as an air raid siren sounded. The New York Times laughably gushed over the incident, calling it “a dramatic moment that underscored the investment the United States has made in Ukraine’s independence.”
Other outlets joined in on pushing the narrative about how brave Biden was. We have reason to believe that the incident was staged, of course, for Biden’s benefit. It wouldn’t be surprising if there’s a similarly staged situation for the cameras during Biden’s visit to Israel as well. CNN even made a point to note about the security risks of Biden coming to Israel.
“The security risks of a diplomatic visit to Israel were starkly illustrated Monday when Blinken, in his meeting with Netanyahu, was forced to shelter in place after air sirens warned of incoming rockets,” CNN reported Monday. “White House officials said they’d carefully weighed the risks of a presidential visit and deemed it safe enough both to execute and announce ahead of time.”
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Here’s what’s really happening and why. Over the summer, Joe Biden refused to cut his vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Del., short to oversee federal recovery efforts for the wildfires in Hawaii, nor did he return to the White House to make even the slightest effort to pretend to care. Biden was so unbothered that when reporters asked him about the rising death toll in Maui, Biden replied, “No comment.” Meanwhile, residents were loudly complaining to the media about the lack of federal help they were getting. So, naturally, to help boost his image, Biden did eventually visit Maui nearly two weeks after the devastation that caused billions in property damage, killed over 100 people, and left close to a thousand more missing.
Biden’s trip to Maui wasn’t particularly successful. It certainly didn’t quell the anger of locals who felt the Biden administration had screwed them over. Biden’s trip to Israel is no different than the trip to Maui. The White House is keenly aware that Biden’s appeasement of Iran and unfreezing of $6 billion in Iranian assets played a role in the attack that sparked the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Obviously, the White House is hoping this visit will make us forget why Israel is in this situation in the first place.
