If a week ago President Joe Biden managed to delight and strengthen the entire People of Israel with his historic speech, on Wednesday he touched our hearts all the more. The president went to the trouble of flying to Tel Aviv, a hot spot in our war against Hamas, and to express again his unreserved support of our right to defend ourselves. He drew a link between our suffering and his own personal anguish as one who had lost a wife and two children. He likened Hamas' blood-curdling slaughter of Israelis to the Nazis' actions against the Jews in the Holocaust and likened its horrors to "fifteen 9/11s." Biden's visit and his far-reaching statements will be recorded as a mighty gesture to the State of Israel and a historic act of heroism in the history of the Jewish people. The president did all of this not only under tangled security circumstances but also in a geopolitical environment no less snarled.
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The timing of the visit could not have been worse. The fatal explosion at the hospital in Gaza the day before his arrival touched off a media explosion and enflamed the discourse surrounding the ongoing war between Israel and the various terror organizations. Biden said, in his typical folksy way, "It appears as though it [the explosion] was done by the other team," without explicitly naming that "other team." This statement, which raised many eyebrows and caused much dissatisfaction, was in fact a highly courageous and meaningful act, in which Biden again stationed himself at Israel's side and absolved it of all guilt. Biden came to give us not only strength but also an embrace. His visit coincided with growing criticism of Israel abroad generally, in the United States particularly, and within Biden's party above all. For the first time in history, the president joined a meeting of the government ministers' war forum and met the heads of the Israeli defense system. Furthermore, he met with families of those murdered, those missing, and those abducted.
Biden offered Israel a massive and unprecedented package worth billions of dollars. Concurrently, he demanded several Israeli concessions in the matter of opening a corridor for humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands who have been left homeless and, at times, without food and water in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. In my estimation, the possibility of opening an additional front in the north was also discussed against the background of the sizable possibility of massive fire by Hezbollah, which has been issuing a drip of antitank missiles across Israel's border for a week now. Similarly, I am convinced that the presence of two massive aircraft carriers, each escorted by a flotilla of warships, is not a mere show of force. I have been asked whether Biden is capable of pulling the trigger for us, and I answer unequivocally and clearly: yes.
Over the years, I have stated repeatedly that Israel should be willing and prepared to defend itself and get by without American aid. At the present time, I believe that Israel is strong, the IDF is strong, and we are prepared and willing to defend ourselves and our right to exist independently. As I see it, Biden's visit and his actions are not a "rescue" operation for an inept state. Its definitive and immeasurably important goal is to create international legitimacy for the existence of the State of Israel and its right to fight for the safety and security of all its inhabitants.
As President Biden said – the people of Israel live!
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