Biden Foreign Policy Unchanged by Hamas Attacks

Immediately after Hamas launched its war on Israel, Elliott Abrams argued in these pages that the 10/7 assault would — and should — turn Israeli and American policy upside down. 10/7 would be to Joe Biden what 9/11 was to George W. Bush: a transformational attack that led to a fundamental and radical shift in U.S. policy. One would have assumed that the policies that had led to the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust would be discarded for ones that sought to defeat, rather than tolerate, the perpetrators.

One month later, not one iota of U.S. policy has changed. Notwithstanding the deadliest terrorist attack against Americans since 9/11 and the deadliest Iran-sponsored attack on Americans since 1996, the administration remains just as committed to engaging with Iran and promoting policies that would turn the West Bank into a Gaza-like terrorist state as it was before. Biden has rightly endorsed the objective of Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza, but his team sees Hamas as a small, cancerous mole that requires removal; it refuses to conduct the necessary full-body diagnostic of its failed policies.

GS

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Gabriel Scheinmann

Gabriel Scheinmann is the executive director of the Alexander Hamilton Society.

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Immediately after Hamas launched its war on Israel, Elliott Abrams argued in these pages that the 10/7 assault would — and should — turn Israeli and American policy upside down. 10/7 would be to Joe Biden what 9/11 was to George W. Bush: a transformational attack that led to a fundamental and radical shift in U.S. policy. One would have assumed that the policies that had led to the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust would be discarded for ones that sought to defeat, rather than tolerate, the perpetrators.

One month later, not one iota of U.S. policy has changed. Notwithstanding the deadliest terrorist attack against Americans since 9/11 and the deadliest Iran-sponsored attack on Americans since 1996, the administration remains just as committed to engaging with Iran and promoting policies that would turn the West Bank into a Gaza-like terrorist state as it was before. Biden has rightly endorsed the objective of Israel’s ongoing military operation in Gaza, but his team sees Hamas as a small, cancerous mole that requires removal; it refuses to conduct the necessary full-body diagnostic of its failed policies.