Will America finally let Israel win? According to JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin, that may be key to understanding the differences between the Middle East policies of the Biden and Trump administrations.
Besides Donald Trump, President Joe Biden and his predecessors were so committed to failed ideas like the two-state solution that they didn’t understand they were prolonging the conflict by pressuring Israel to make concessions to Palestinians who were not interested in peace.
Tobin is joined by Victoria Coates, a scholar at the Heritage Foundation and former Trump administration deputy national security advisor, as well as the author of the new book, The Battle For the Jewish State: How Israel—and America—Can Win.
Coates argues that the post-Oct. 7 war Israel is fighting against Iranian-backed proxies Hamas and Hezbollah makes it necessary for the United States to break away from the vicious cycle of failed peace attempts. She says that Zionist visionary Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s 1923 essay, “The Iron Wall” should provide some guidance to both Washington and Jerusalem. Coates believes that Jabotinsky was right in predicting that peace between Jews and Arabs could only come once the latter were finally made to understand that they couldn’t defeat the Zionist cause.
She blames the Biden administration’s appeasement of both Iran and the Palestinians as helping to set the stage for the Oct. 7 atrocities in southern Israel and for prolonging the current war. Moreover, she thinks that Biden’s attempts to handcuff Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas have caused it to drag on, as well as delayed the release of the hostages being held by the terrorists for nearly 15 months.
The author also believes that the left-wing ideology motivating anti-Israel protests is not only fueling the surge in antisemitism, it’s also “a threat to the United States.” She warned, “If they take down Israel using these means, the United States is next. It’s the same as the Iranians saying ‘little Satan’ and ‘big Satan.’ Well, guess what? We’re both Satan. And they’re coming for us if we don’t stand against it.”
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