Even the Arabs recognize these facts.
Courtesy of Doug Ross.

Despite several months of delay forced on it by the Biden administration in its effort to placate the Democratic Party’s Islamic wing, Israel today began its final offensive against Hamas’s last Gazan stronghold in the southern city of Rafah.

According to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), “The IDF is currently conducting targeted strikes against Hamas terror targets in eastern Rafah in southern Gaza.” It has also dropped leaflets throughout Rafah telling the general population to evacuate to the west and north into areas that Israel has set up to hold non-combatant refugees.

The initiation of this offensive is likely linked to Hamas’s actions this weekend. First Hamas proudly took credit for bombing the border crossing used to bring humanitarian aid to the city. That attack killed three Israeli soldiers, and put an end to the aid. Hamas also continued to stall and refuse to negotiate, and then when it was clear the offensive was about to start it suddenly announced it had accepted a ceasefire deal offered to it by Qatar and Egypt that Israel had no part in negotiating and had already rejected.

What will happen next is somewhat unclear. Israel will without doubt be able to take Rafah and likely eliminate the remaining four or so battalions of Hamas terrorists. Will it be able to do so without a large number of civilian casualties is unclear, as Hamas has a policy of using those civilians as shields. It will likely try to do so again.

The ramifications of the long delay in this offensive are however important. It occurred partly because Israel’s army wanted to regroup, but mostly because the Biden administration has been desperately trying to prevent it. The White House has threatened Israel in a number of ways if it moved forward with the attack, most recently by putting a hold on a shipment to Israel of ammo. Biden officials have also stated several times that they are considering a major change in its policy towards Israel if the Rafah offensive occurs.

Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly made it clear that Israel has no intention of making any peace deal with Hamas. In the past month however it did appear the Israeli government was holding off on the offensive in order to placate the White House and hopefully work out a deal to get the hostages released.

In the end, the delay has served no good purpose, and in fact has had many negative consequences, against Biden, the Gazan people themselves, and the United States.

The bad political consequences for Biden

It has been assumed by the entire political pundit world that Biden has been trying to prevent this final assault on Hamas in order to shore up support from the Democratic Party’s Islamic wing. The demonstrations earlier this year by Muslims in Michigan and other cities against Biden’s support for Israel has filled the Democrats with terror. They don’t want to lose that voting bloc, and now appears that the Israeli alliance threatens to do exactly that.

Thus, Biden’s effort to delay or stop Israeli’s offensive.

This effort however appears to be a very bad political miscalculation by the Democrats. That Islamic voting bloc is actually relatively small. Even if Biden wins its vote by hurting Israel and saving Hamas he is certain by that action to lose far more votes from previously loyal voters among Jews and moderate Democrats.

All indications point in that direction, especially because of the violent, lawless, and anti-Semitic nature of the pro-Hamas protests recently on college campuses. What the vast majority of middle-of-the-road voters see is not an Israeli genocide of Gazans — the lie being put out by those protesters — but Joe Biden and the Democrats publicly affiliating themselves with Hamas, a terrorist organization that tortured, raped, and murdered more than a thousand people on October 7th, including women, children, and even babies.

The delay has further allowed this whole issue to fester, thus increasing its political harm to the Democrats. By forcing this war to be stretched out it has made it possible for even more people to see the left’s ugly alliance with Hamas and the college rioters. Had Israel taken this action two months ago, the bigoted college riots of the past few weeks would have occurred as a backdrop to that offensive, instead of an unprovoked atrocious illegal craziness. Many moderate Democrats might thus have been fooled into believing the Democrats were simply opposing the slaughter of innocent Gazans, instead of recognizing how closely aligned with these terrorists the Democratic Party has become.

They realize it now however, and the political ramifications for the Democrats do not look good.

The harm to the Gazans

The best thing anyone can do in any war is to end it as quickly as possible. The longer it gets dragged out, the more people suffer and die, especially the innocent who are caught in the crossfire.

In Gaza the delay has caused more hunger and famine, and a longer period when the agony of these people is prolonged. Without doubt the sooner the war is over the sooner they can begin living a normal life, freed from the totalitarian and mad yoke of Hamas’ rule. Under Israeli control the goal will be to foster prosperity and good will, as it has been Israel’s goal within its country as well as in the West Bank for decades. The Palestinians might not want to recognize this but the Arabs in Israel do.

Biden has instead accomplished the opposite. By forcing Israel to postpone this final offensive, Biden only extended the pain and harm to these people, and has done so unnecessarily.

Israel: maybe our last defender of civilization

The harm to the United States

By allowing this war to fester Biden has achieved only one thing in the United States: He has helped further divide an already divided nation, while allowing his non-action to trigger more riots and hate between different political factions.

Nothing good can come of this growing factional war. And Biden has done everything he can to feed its fury.

What now?

The best thing that can happen for everyone concerned would be for Israel to move quickly and decisively to end Hamas’s rule in Gaza, and then quickly move to rebuild that tiny wartorn strip of land. Such success, which are I firmly expect to happen, will not bring peace and love to the region — or to the United States — but it will go a long way to improving the situation.

At least, that is the best hope we can have. Nothing the Biden administration has recommended has helped. It has only hurt. Time for someone else to act, and Israel appears the only one capable of doing so.