Joe Biden Doesn’t Deserve Israel’s Presidential Medal of Honor

Israeli president Isaac Herzog is slated to give President Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Honor on Thursday, the second day of Biden’s visit to the Middle East. This seems to be more a diplomatic ploy than a legitimate reflection of how Israelis feel about Biden’s commitment to the Jewish state. (Such a ploy is not unprecedented: Former president Barack Obama, whose policies were often to Israel’s detriment, also received the medal.) But even so, given his administration’s record, Biden does not deserve this or any other medal from Israel.

Let’s start off with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s decision, four months into Biden’s presidency, to announce that the administration intended to reopen the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem, which handled diplomacy with the Palestinian Authority (PA) before the Trump administration shut it down in 2019. Biden needs the Israeli government’s approval to reopen the consulate, and it seems unlikely to be given, because, as Axios reported last month, Israel “vehemently opposes” the idea. When the consulate was shut down by Trump, the U.S. diplomats in charge of relations with the PA, who had until then reported directly to Washington, were transferred to a new Palestinian Affairs Unit within the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and made to report to the U.S. ambassador. The Biden administration, aware that it would not get Israel’s approval to reopen the consulate, recently did the next best thing: It remade the Palestinian Affairs Unit as the independent Office of Palestinian Affairs, restoring the diplomats’ direct line to Foggy Bottom.

JW

About the Author

Jack Wolfsohn

Jack Wolfsohn, formerly an intern at National Review, is a candidate for a Master’s in Strategy, Cybersecurity, and Intelligence at Johns Hopkins University SAIS. Following graduation, he hopes to join the intelligence community, the State Department, or the Department of Defense.

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Israeli president Isaac Herzog is slated to give President Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Honor on Thursday, the second day of Biden’s visit to the Middle East. This seems to be more a diplomatic ploy than a legitimate reflection of how Israelis feel about Biden’s commitment to the Jewish state. (Such a ploy is not unprecedented: Former president Barack Obama, whose policies were often to Israel’s detriment, also received the medal.) But even so, given his administration’s record, Biden does not deserve this or any other medal from Israel.

Let’s start off with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s decision, four months into Biden’s presidency, to announce that the administration intended to reopen the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem, which handled diplomacy with the Palestinian Authority (PA) before the Trump administration shut it down in 2019. Biden needs the Israeli government’s approval to reopen the consulate, and it seems unlikely to be given, because, as Axios reported last month, Israel “vehemently opposes” the idea. When the consulate was shut down by Trump, the U.S. diplomats in charge of relations with the PA, who had until then reported directly to Washington, were transferred to a new Palestinian Affairs Unit within the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and made to report to the U.S. ambassador. The Biden administration, aware that it would not get Israel’s approval to reopen the consulate, recently did the next best thing: It remade the Palestinian Affairs Unit as the independent Office of Palestinian Affairs, restoring the diplomats’ direct line to Foggy Bottom.

JW

About the Author

Jack Wolfsohn

Jack Wolfsohn, formerly an intern at National Review, is a candidate for a Master’s in Strategy, Cybersecurity, and Intelligence at Johns Hopkins University SAIS. Following graduation, he hopes to join the intelligence community, the State Department, or the Department of Defense.