United States President Donald Trump's appointment of Mel Gibson to be one of three special ambassadors to Hollywood brought the latter's antisemitic history into the limelight again, including Gibson's drunken anti-Jewish rant when a police officer arrested him for drunk driving in 2006 (which he later profusely apologized for); and his ugly alleged "oven dodger" comment to Jewish actress Winona Ryder in 2020.

Gibson's most harmful action was directing, financing and co-writing his antisemitic 2004 "Passion of Christ" film – which earned over $600 million and was seen by hundreds of millions of people, fomenting anti-Jewish hatred. Gibson's film libels Jews as responsible for Jesus' torments and death while whitewashing the cruel Roman Governor Pontius Pilate who actually ordered and was responsible for Jesus' crucifixion.

The film begins with Judas betraying Jesus for silver coins; portrays Jews and Jewish priests and scribes as violent brutish accusers and tormenters of Jesus; and portrays Pontius Pilate telling Jesus: "Your High Priests have delivered you to me; They want me to have you executed." The film then absurdly shows Pilate exonerating Jesus, but then "giving in" after Jewish priests and crowds demand Jesus' crucifixion. The film also shows a Jewish crowd saying, "His blood be on us and on our children" – a phrase frequently cited as evidence of the Jewish people's collective guilt. The phrase was so incendiary that Gibson was reportedly forced to drop it from the films' subtitles, although it remained in the spoken Aramaic. It's particularly awful that Gibson included this 40 years after the Catholic Church's 1965 Nostra Aetate, which ended the libel of "collective Jewish guilt."

In sum, Gibson's film promoted a thoroughly antisemitic narrative, likely to engender hatred and violence against Jews. Unsurprisingly, Al Jazeera reported that Palestinian Authority dictator Mahmoud Abbas was "moved" by the film, and that pirated copies were the best-selling film among the Palestinian Arabs in the "West Bank" (Judea-Samaria). (Abbas incites Arabs to spill Jewish blood and pays terrorists rewards for murdering Jews.)

After his drunken anti-Jewish rant in 2006, Gibson released a statement seeking the Jewish community's forgiveness and asking the community to assist helping him learn how he could make amends.

Perhaps being appointed an ambassador to Hollywood is that opportunity to make amends - especially now that Gibson is planning what he calls an "acid trip" sequel to Passion of Christ. Simply put, Gibson can change his libelous, antisemitic "Passion" narrative to one that stops falsely blaming the Jews – in both his sequel and by revising the libels in the existing film.

Those sorts of changes have been done by others with long histories of purveying such antisemitic libels – most notably, the Oberammergau Passion Play.

Beginning in 1634, once a decade for 360 years, the town of Oberammergau, Germany produced the infamous vile antisemitic Oberammergau passion play, libeling Jews with medieval antisemitic tropes and as eternally responsible for killing Jesus Christ. Hitler saw the 1930 and 1934 (300th Anniversary) Oberammergau Passion plays, and afterwards proclaimed, "Never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed." The Oberammergau passion plays were copied in towns throughout Europe, and incited anti-Jewish hatred and violence.

Finally, in 1990, the Oberammergau passion play changed when Christian Stückl became the play's director. The play stopped depicting Jews as eternal murderers of Jesus; highlighted Jesus' Jewishness; and made it clear that only Roman Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to death.

Mel Gibson should do the same.

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We were initially pleased to see Vice President Kamala Harris screen parts of Sheryl Sandberg's film; condemn Hamas' "horrific acts of sexual violence" against Israeli women, and call for accountability for all perpetrators of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV).at the White House event marking June 17 as the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict.

VP Harris stated: "We cannot look away, and we will not be silent," and "I saw images of bloodied Israeli women abducted. . .  Hamas committed rape and gang rape at the Nova music festival, and women's bodies were found naked from the waist down, hands tied behind their back[s] and shot in the head."  VP Harris also called for all "governments, international organizations, civil society, and individual citizens . . . to do what is necessary to hold perpetrators accountable," and concluded that "the bottom line is the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war is unconscionable, and any failure to hold perpetrators accountable is a failure to live up to our common humanity."

But we were horrified that the Biden-Harris Administration simultaneously took at least four hypocritical, discriminatory actions that excluded Israeli women and/or rewarded Hamas instead of holding Arab Islamic Hamas terrorists "accountable."

First, the Biden-Harris actual actions to address CRSV – described in the White House "Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration's Actions to Address Conflict-Related Sexual Violence," (June 17, 2024) – omitted Israeli victims and Arab Hamas perpetrators.   The Biden-Harris actions to address CRSV include: helping victims in Ukraine; sanctioning perpetrators in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Haiti, South Sudan and Sudan; renewing and strengthening UNSC sanctions against ISIS and Al Qaeda; and providing more funding to the United Nations ($2.15 million), Sudan ($2.72 million), and Sri Lanka ( $1.5 million).

How is excluding Israeli victims of Islamic Hamas' sexual atrocities "living up to our common humanity"?

Notably, evil Israel-haters tweeted that the Biden-Harris actions fact sheet omitted Israeli victims and Arab Hamas perpetrators "because no one was raped."  Thus the Biden-Administration's exclusion of Jewish victims and Hamas gave fuel to the antisemitic, libelous lying deniers of Islamic Hamas' massacre and sexual violence.

The White House discriminatory, exclusionary actions remind us of the saying, "Me too, unless you're a Jew."

Second, VP Kamala Harris used her CRSV event to promote the Biden administration's ceasefire deal, which is likely to lead to Hamas Arab terrorists committing more sexual violence.  VP Harris declared: "Hamas needs to accept the ceasefire deal on the table, which would bring the hostages home and lead to a permanent end to hostilities."  The ceasefire deal that the Biden administration put on the table leaves Israel with no protective buffer zone in Gaza, enables weapons to freely flow into Gaza within years, and releases approximately 6,000 (!) convicted Jihadist Hamas and other Palestinian Arab terrorists, rapists, torturers and murderers. We shudder to think of the sexual atrocities that these unrepentant terrorists will perpetrate if they are released.  How is this holding Hamas "accountable"?  If VP Harris were serious about protecting Israeli victims and holding Hamas accountable, the Biden-Harris administration should be pressuring Jihadist Hamas to free the hostages now and support Israel's defensive actions against the Hamas monsters.  Painfully, 90% of the Gaza Arab civilians support the 10/7 horrors and 80% still support the Islamic Arab Hamas murderers. The administration has the means to exert such pressure – including by threatening to leave the U.S. airbase in Qatar, exerting maximum sanctions on Iran, and fully backing Israel's military offensive on Hamas.  But the Biden-Harris administration refuses to "do what is necessary to hold perpetrators accountable."

Third, the Biden-Harris administration announced on June 11 that it is sending another $404 million to Gaza(Hamastan)– which Arab Hamas terrorists will of course again seize.  How is this holding Hamas accountable?

Fourth, VP Harris apparently indirectly referred to, and gave her imprimatur to antisemitic, libelous, absurd, false allegations that Israeli security forces perpetrated sexual violence against Palestinian terror suspects, when Harris said regarding Gaza, "We are deeply concerned by all reports of sexual violence and degradation, and we mourn every innocent life lost in this conflict."  VP Harris' "blame the victim" intimation was sick, despicable and outrageous – and rewards Arab Islamic Jihadist Hamas instead of holding Hamas accountable.

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On November 10, 1975 – the 37^th anniversary of the Nazis' nationwide Kristallnacht pogrom against German Jews, the United Nation General Assembly passed infamous Resolution 3379, calling Zionism – the national liberation movement of the Jewish people – a form of "racism."  U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan promptly stood up and gave one of the most powerful speeches ever given at the UN.  Ambassador Moynihan noted that the day would live in infamy, castigated the UN members that combined to perpetrate this outrageous obscenity, and refuted the UN resolution as a terrible lie that gave the abomination of antisemitism the appearance of international sanction, and would do grave harm to the whole notion of human rights.

Fortunately, Resolution 3379 was revoked in 1991, thanks to the hard work of the George H.W. Bush administration.  But unfortunately, the United Nations has continued to be a forum where the abomination of antisemitism is repeatedly given the appearance of international sanction.

This happened once again today: Shamefully, UN Secretary-General António Guterres' Chief of Staff notified Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan that Israel (along with Hamas) was being added to a "List of Shame" appended to the UN Secretary-General's report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC), shaming countries and armed organizations that allegedly have not taken adequate measures to improve the protection of children during conflict.

Israel is a moral, human-rights-loving nation that goes out of its way to protect Palestinian children's and civilians' lives at the risk of Israel's own soldiers' lives.  It is utterly obscene to place Israel on the same "list of shame" with Hamas, which deliberately murders, tortures and abducts Jewish children and deliberately places its own children in harm's way.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, the UN actually "added itself to the black list of history when it joined those who support the Hamas murderers."

Indeed.  It is the UN that belongs on the List of Shame – especially the UN's largest agency, UNRWA – whose teachers and other workers participated in murdering and abducting Jewish civilians on October 7^th; bragged about their genocidal crimes; imprisoned hostages in their homes in Gaza; teach Palestinian children to murder Jews; and continue to store weapons and provide facilities for Hamas in UNRWA schools and other facilities.

ZOA also completely agrees with Ambassador Erdan's strong response: "I am utterly shocked and disgusted by this shameful decision of the Secretary-General. You know that Israel's army is the most moral army in the world and you know it. This is an immoral decision that only aids terrorism and reward Hamas. . . . The only one who is blacklisted today is the Secretary-General whose decisions since the war started, and even before, are rewarding terrorists and incentivizing them to use children for terror acts. Now Hamas will continue even more to use schools and hospitals because this shameful decision of the Secretary-General will only give Hamas hope to survive and extend the war and extend the suffering. Shame on him!"

In 1975, Ambassador Moynihan declared: "The United States rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous act."

It's time for the United States to rise up and say the same thing today, demand that Guterras must immediately remove Israel from his "List of Shame," and take action against the cesspool that the United Nations has become.

Every decent country that has the moral capacity to distinguish good from evil must likewise stand up and protest the UN's latest antisemitic abomination, and demand that it be revoked.

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Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, wrote that surprise tactics are a major key to victory. The famed Chinese general and strategist advised: "Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected";  "The spot where we intend to fight must not be made known; for then the enemy will have to [be able to] prepare against a possible attack at several different points"; "All warfare is based on deception"; "military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand"; and "Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will."

On October 7, Hamas deployed these tactics: torturing and slaughtering 1200 Israelis, wounding another 5,000 Israelis, and taking 250 hostages in Hamas' brutal surprise attack. Similar to Sun Tzu's tactics, surprise combined with overwhelming force and speed is the predominant method Western governments use to execute wars.  But, Israel's military offensive has been forgoing these vital elements of surprise, overwhelming force and speed in order to protect Gazan enemy civilians while endangering Israel's own soldiers. (and Gaza's enemy Arab civilians are not so innocent, 80% support Hamas, 90% support 10/7)

John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at West Point's Modern War personally observed and wrote that, in order to prevent harm to Gazan civilians, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) "has telegraphed almost every move ahead of time so civilians can relocate, nearly always ceding the element of surprise."  Of course, Israel's advance warnings to protect civilians also enable Hamas to reposition its senior leaders and Israeli hostages through its tunnels, and plan attacks that endanger Israel's soldiers.

Spencer recounted that Israel gave warnings, sometimes for weeks, for civilians to evacuate major northern Gazan areas before Israel launched its ground campaign; dropped over 7 million flyers, made over 70,000 direct phones calls, sent over 13 million text messages; left over 15 million voicemails; dropped speakers that broadcasted evacuation instructions; provided daily pauses and even provided daily military maps of upcoming combat areas to evacuate.  Israel also uses drone and satellite imagery, cell phone presence and building damage assessments to avoid hitting civilians.  These unprecedented measures have effectively kept the overwhelming majority of Gazan civilians out of harm's way. No army in history has done more to protect enemy civilians.

Spencer also noted the IDF's unique precautions to avoid civilian harm while rooting out Hamas terrorists illegally embedded in al Shifa hospital.  The IDF brought along doctors, food, water and medical supplies for the civilians inside. Unheard of! The IDF also has "civilian harm mitigation units" who constantly work to prevent civilian harm.  What other nation's army has such a thing?   And as the IDF confirms, "Very often, we give up some targets, despite our interests, simply because we are committed to minimizing the suffering of Gazan civilians."

And in addition to facilitating deliveries of hundreds of truckloads of humanitarian aid every day; massive amounts of shelter equipment (tents, mattresses, blankets and hygiene products), the IDF also established an extensive medical aidinfrastructure to treat Gazan enemy civilians .  This includes eight large field hospitals; two medical ships docked at the Al-Arish port to support the field hospitals and enable staff rotation; and facilitating medical teams' movement and evacuation of patients needing specialized care.  Again, what other nation has done anything like this to protect enemy civilians?

Remarkably, Israel engages in all these enormous efforts to prevent civilian Gazan harm even though thousands of Gazan civilians joined in perpetrating atrocities against innocent Jews on October 7; many Gazan families are hiding Hamas' weapons in their homes; and Hamas has been paying Gazan families to imprison Israeli hostages in their homes.

Judge Aharon Barak also detailed some of Israel's extraordinary measures to protect civilians in his May 24, 2024 dissenting opinion in the baseless ICJ case that South Africa brought against Israel. Judge Barak noted that Israel "has taken measures to establish humanitarian zones where the civilian population may safely evacuate. The Al-Mawasi area has been designated as the principal, but not the only safe zone for the persons fleeing from Rafah. Israel provided evidence that the Al-Mawasi area is connected to the two main humanitarian routes in Gaza and to the new temporary pier (JLOTS).  The Al-Mawasi area is not just "barren sand dunes." According to Israel, it is connected to the Bani Suhueila water line, which Israel has helped to repair, and has water tanks, water pumps and desalination plants. It has also been reinforced with additional supplies of shelter, food and medicine, inter alia, and the construction of two field hospitals. On 12 May 2024, Israel announced another new field hospital in the Al-Mawasi area. This constitutes the eighth field hospital facilitated by Israel in Gaza since the beginning of the war. . .

Israel did not act in February. Instead, as Israel explained, it planned a military operation that would minimize the harm to enemy Arab civilians as much as possible." West Point's John Spencer concluded: "In my long career studying and advising on urban warfare for the U.S. military, I've never known an army to take such measures to attend to the enemy's civilian population, especially while simultaneously combating the enemy in the very same buildings. In fact, by my analysis, Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history—above and beyond what international law requires and more than the U.S. did in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Similarly, the former Commander of Britain's forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, observed Israel's extraordinary measures to protect enemy Gaza civilians, explained that Israel is the world's most moral army, and noted "Never in the history of warfare has an army phoned its enemy and told them where they are going to drop their bombs.  Many IDF missions that could have taken out Hamas military capabilities were aborted to prevent civilian casualties, increasing the risk to Israeli citizens and soldiers. . . . No army takes such risks in order to protect civilians as the Israeli army does. I say this as a professional soldier. I say it because it's true. And people who care about truth should know it."

Yet the world gives Israel no credit for this unbelievable protection of enemy Gaza Arab civilians. More shocking is that the world, the UN, the media, universities, students, even America falsely and brazenly condemn Israel for genocide and for causing too many enemy civilian deaths. Will this breathtaking, undeserved propaganda blood libel against the Jewish state ever stop.

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I'm often asked the following: "What explains President Joe Biden's anti-Israel actions since Oct. 7?"; "Why is Biden stopping arms and ammunition shipments to Israel in the midst of a war to protect Israel's existence, and withholding intelligence about Hamas leaders and tunnels' location?";  "Why is he enabling passage of anti-Israel UN Security Council resolutions?"; "Why is he falsely accusing Israel of "indiscriminate" bombing, sanctioning innocent Israeli citizens, and threatening to sanction moral Israeli soldiers?"; "Why is Biden having his aide Blinken proclaim Israel is becoming "indistinguishable from Hamas," and facilitating Iran receiving $26 Billion and enriching Iran with tens of billions of dollars of sanctions waivers, when Iran is funding and arming its proxies attacking Israel – and itself launched 350 deadly missiles at Israel?"; "Why is Biden pressuring Israel to reward pro-Hamas Palestinians with a terrorist dictatorship state?"; "Why did Biden's Secretary of State demand that Israel "Get out of Gaza!" And "don't retaliate" when Hamas committed a massacre and is still holding innocent American and Israeli hostages, and when destroying Hamas' terrorist regime is essential for Israel's survival?"

Analysts always answer that Biden is worried about Arab voters in Michigan and other swing states.

But that answer is wrong. Biden has been hostile to Israel since day one of his administration before Michigan was a twinkle in his eye. Moreover, Biden stands to lose more Jewish and pro-Israel votes than he gains from anti-Israel communities, as 80% of Americans support Israel over Hamas.

I thus believe that the real reason for Biden's anti-Israel policies is Biden's longstanding and sinister hostility to Israel.

In 1982, then-Senator Biden banged his fists on the table and infamously threatened then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to withhold US funds if Jews continued living in the lawful Jewish communities of Judea-Samaria. I met with then-Senator Biden and his staff many times during the past 30 years. They were always extraordinarily hostile toward Israel.

Former hostile-to-Israel President Barack Obama, who listened to his beloved Reverend Wright spewing anti-Israel hatred for two decades and was close friends with Louis Farrakhan would never have chosen Biden as his running mate if Biden was pro-Israel. As Vice President, Biden excoriated Israel for approving building homes for Jews in Jerusalem; boycotted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's 2015 speech to Congress – contravening the vice presidential role of sitting behind visiting heads of state speaking to Congress, and promoted the dangerous Iran deal.

During Trump's presidency, Biden objected to Trump moving the US Embassy to Israel's 3,000-year-old capital Jerusalem without placing "conditions" on Israel and getting Israel to make "important concessions" towards a Palestinian (terror) state. All this occurred long before he was thinking of the 2024 election.

Personnel is policy. Biden's appointees and nominees to virtually every major position dealing with Israel are hostile to Israel. Biden's Special Representative for Palestinian/Israel Affairs Hady Amr wrote he was "inspired by the Intifada" (terror wars in which Arab terrorists murdered or maimed approximately 10,000 Jews). Legislative Affairs Deputy Director Reema Dodin justified and encouraged suicide bombings against Jews, organized anti-Israel rallies, and spread anti-Israel blood libels. National Security Council member, Deputy Assistant to the President, and Intelligence and Defense Policy Coordinator Maher Bitar organized Georgetown University's Palestine Solidarity Movement anti-Israel boycott conference; ran a session on how to demonize Israel; and assisted or worked for anti-Israel hate groups Sabeel, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Badil, FMEP, and UNRWA. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre helped orchestrate the Democratic presidential candidates' boycott of The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines signed a letter falsely accusing Israel of violence, terrorism, and incitement. Biden's Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley (whose security clearance was suspended in 2023) is a long-time apologist for Hamas and supports a nuclear Iran.

Biden immediately stopped enforcing sanctions on Iran and resumed sending $1.5 billion to UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority whose funding was stopped by the previous administration because of their anti-Israel actions. The House Financial Services Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions reported that Trump's maximum sanctions policy decreased Iran's annual oil revenues from $100 billion to $8 billion, and reduced Iran's accessible foreign reserves from $122 billion to $4 billion (near bankruptcy). But Biden's lax enforcement then increased Iran's annual oil revenues to $40 billion commencing in 2021; benefitted Iran by more than $80 billion; and increased Iran's accessible foreign reserves to $49 billion. Without this huge largess, it's doubtful that Iran and Hamas could have perpetrated Oct. 7.

Also, during ten days in May 2021 when Hamas launched 4,500 rockets at Israel, Biden pressured Israel to agree to a premature, immediate ceasefire – before Israel could destroy Hamas' terror tunnels and rocket arsenal. If Israel had been able to finish the job in 2021, Oct. 7 would not have occurred. In 2021-2022, Biden pressed Israel to give Gazans thousands of permits to work in Israel. Gazans used those permits to map Israeli communities and kindergartens, enabling Hamas' attack.

Biden further weakened Israel in October 2022 by pressuring Israel to surrender 330 square miles of maritime territory including valuable gas fields to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, enriching Iranian-terror proxy Hezbollah with billions of dollars which helped it launch recent rocket attacks that drove 80,000 Israelis in northern Israel from their homes.

From day one, the Biden administration also incessantly pressured Israel to establish a pathway to a Palestinian Arab (terror) state; pressured Israel to re-open Obama's Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem; condemned Jewish communities in Judea-Samaria; failed to take action against the Palestinian Authority's "pay to slay" payments to terrorists to murder Jews; and more.

All those policies damaging Israel occurred well before the Dearborn Arabs' Abandon Biden movement. Biden's hostile policies toward Israel are not about elections and Michigan. Painfully, the facts require that we recognize that it's Biden's longstanding sinister animus toward the Jewish State.

Morton A. Klein is the National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA).

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At least ten times since October 7, President Biden stated that the Muslim Arab terrorist group "Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people," or variations such as "the vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas";  and "Hamas does not represent the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people."  In addition, top Biden administration officials repeated the same phrases.

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But the Biden administration's repeated statement isn't true.  In fact, Hamas overwhelming represents the Palestinian people.

First, the Palestinians elected  Hamas' "Change and Reform" party in 2006 (the most recent legislative election), giving Hamas an overwhelming 74 seats.  The PA's Fatah only won 45 seats. Parties representing other terror groups, e.g., PFLP's "Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa" party, each won 2 to 4 seats.  PA dictator Mahmoud Abbas has not held elections for the past seventeen years to avoid losing again to Hamas.  And last year, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians rallied in the streets to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Hamas.

Moreover, Hamas terror attacks on Israelis increase Palestinian support for Hamas.  For example, Palestinian support for Hamas increased dramatically after Hamas launched 4,500 rockets at Israel in May 2021.

Second, Gazan civilians actively participated in, aided, abetted and celebrated the October 7 massacre.

"Ordinary" Gazan civilian workers in Israel (thousands of whom were allowed into Israel due to the Biden administration's pressure) collected detailed intelligence on every home and citizen in southern Israeli towns, and drew maps for Hamas to easily locate Jewish nurseries and families to murder and kidnap.

Then, after the first wave of Hamas terrorists slaughtered over 1,400 Jews, huge waves of "ordinary" Gazan civilians, armed with knives and screaming "Allahu Akbar," flooded into southern Israel, and joined in the Hamas massacres and kidnappings.  Mobs of Gazan civilians killed and gang-raped innocent Jews; chopped off innocent Jews' heads; took hostages; entered and burnt down massacred Jews' homes, and ransacked and looted everything in sight – televisions, automobiles, jewelry, children's bicycles, etc.  Israeli Telegram Channel South First Responders reported:: "The assault on Southern Israel was not carried out exclusively by Hamas.  It began with the entry of hundreds of heavily armed terrorists and was followed by waves of Gazans who looted the communities."  The mayor of the regional council encompassing most of the Gaza border explained: "The second wave of Arabs who came into the country were just as cruel as the terrorists of the first wave."

Throngs of Gazan civilians then cheered the ghoulish site of Hamas parading bloodied captured and dead Jews' bodies through the streets.  Gazans beat the Jews as they passed by.

Overjoyed Palestinian Arabs in Judea/Samaria (the "West Bank") also cheered the massacre, dancing in the streets.  Unfortunately, this is nothing new.  Palestinian Arabs routinely joyously celebrate when Arab terrorists murder Jewish children.

Third, if Hamas really didn't represent the Palestinian people, there would have been at least  some uprising against Hamas.  (Look at Iran!)  But no one in Gaza or the Palestinian Authority rose up or spoke out against Hamas' atrocities.  No one showed an ounce of humanity towards the slaughtered Jewish families and babies.

 Fourth, numerous polls demonstrate that Palestinian Arabs in Judea/Samaria and Gaza overwhelmingly support Hamas' "aspiration" to murder Israelis.

When the Palestinian Center for Polling and Survey Research in Ramallah (PCPSR)'s June 2023 poll asked: "What has been the most positive thing or the best thing that has happened to the Palestinian people since the Nakba?"  (Israel's rebirth75 years ago), virtually every single "positive or best thing" that Palestinians and Gazans cited involved forming terror groups and murdering Jews:

The largest percentage (38% in Gaza; 24% of all Palestinians) said that the "single positive or best thing" was the Islamic movements Hamas' and Islamic Jihad's establishment and participation in "armed struggle" (killing Jews); 21% said that the "single positive and best thing" was the first and second intifadas (the terror wars in which Palestinian Arabs murdered or maimed 10,000 Jews in suicide bombings, etc.); and 18% said the PLO (terror organization)'s establishment.

The same June 2023 poll found that 79% of Gazans (71% of all Palestinian Arabs) favored forming even more armed terror groups, e.g., Lion's Den and Jenin Battalion.  These armed groups include Hamas, Fatah and PIJ terrorists, and carried out numerous deadly terror attacks against Jews over the past year.

Further, 80% of Palestinian Arabs oppose surrendering armed groups' members and weapons to the PA; and 86% (falsely) said that the PA does not even have the right to arrest armed terror groups' members to prevent attacks against Israel.

The PCPSR March 2023 poll found that 71% of Palestinian Arabs supported Palestinian terrorists shooting to death two Israeli brothers who simply drove by on a road near Huwara.

The PCPSR September 2019 poll found that 80.3% of Gazans, and 61% of all Palestinian Arabs supported the bombing tactic that murdered 17-year-old Israeli Rina Shnerb and seriously wounded Rina's father and brother.  PFLP Arab terrorists (who were working for European governments) planted an IED near a popular spring in Samaria, and remotely detonated the IED when they saw Rina's family hiking there.

Thus, when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh praised Rina Shnerb's murder as a "heroic act," and when the murderer's mother said that her "greatest achievement was giving birth to a hero," they spoke for the overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs.

And the PCPSR December 2015 poll (taken during the deadly "knife intifada") found that 85% of Gazans (and 67% of all Palestinian Arabs) supported stabbing attacks on Israelis.

Unfortunately, Hamas does indeed represent the overwhelming mass of Palestinian Arabs and their genocidal aspirations.

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President Joe Biden and his administration have been pursuing the same hostile-to-Israel policies promoted by the Obama-Biden administration.

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Let's not be fooled. Extolling "ironclad friendship" between America are simply meaningless and phony words when Biden is enriching the Iranian terror regime with billions of dollars in funds and sanctions relief; pressing Israel to cede her sovereignty and security to a Palestinian terror state on "Auschwitz lines" that would render Israel indefensible; and sending over $1.5 billion to Hamas-allied UNRWA and to the Palestinian regime thereby freeing up funds for the Palestinian Authority to continue paying Arabs lifetime pensions to murder Jews and Americans.

These policies threaten Israel's existence and Jewish and American lives.

And that isn't all. The Biden administration took scores of additional actions that are hostile to Israel and/or Jews.  Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and others wrote about these actions as they occurred.  Here are a few highlights:

• Biden pressured Israel to surrender 330 square miles of natural-gas-rich maritime territory to Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon, thereby enriching Hezbollah with billions of dollars of revenue, and diminishing Israeli maritime security and resources.  Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman decried that this deal gave 100% to Lebanon, and 0% to Israel.
• Biden's combating antisemitism strategy downgraded the excellent IHRA definition of antisemitism by embracing the dangerous NEXUS and JDA definitions that permit antisemitism masked as hatred for the Jewish state and Zionism.   Biden's antisemitism strategy also failed to address major sources of antisemitism other than white supremacy; diluted antisemitism's uniqueness by lumping antisemitism together with "Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny"; and sought to incorporate other hatreds to dilute Holocaust education.
• Biden reinstituted Obama's anti-Jewish boycott of joint US-Israeli science and technology research, cooperation, and projects over the artificial 1949 ceasefire lines.  The boycott discriminates against primarily Jewish institutions such as Ariel University.  By contrast, Palestinian Arab institutions over the ceasefire lines are receiving US assistance.  The US Office of Palestinian Affairs just announced a joint doctoral degree program with"Al Quds" University, located in Jerusalem and throughout the "West Bank."
• Biden has been using a potential game-changing Saudi-Israeli deal to demand Israeli concessions to the Palestinian Authority terror regime, including that a Palestinian state solution must be kept open.
• Biden's State Department sent US taxpayer funds to a partisan, main organizer of the divisive anti-Netanyahu, anti-judicial reform demonstrations that endangered security by closing down major roads and the airport.  Biden and his ambassador to Israel Nides also pressured Israel's government and publicly spoke against the needed judicial reforms that Israelis voted for, thereby undermining Israeli democracy.
• Biden repeatedly pressured Israel to allow the US to re-open an illegal consulate for Palestinian Arabs in western Jerusalem, undermining Israeli sovereignty over her capital.  The US State Department denied reports that the US had given up this effort and instead stated that the Biden administration is still "committed" to opening an (illegal) "Palestinian" consulate in Jerusalem.  Meanwhile, Biden opened a US Office of Palestinian Affairs ("OPA") in Jerusalem, which undermines Israel's sovereignty.  A few days ago, OPA applauded UNRWA giving $3.6 million to terrorist hotbed Jenin.
• In his joint press conference with Palestinian Authority president/dictator Mahmoud Abbas, Biden called ordinary Israeli checkpoints, which are necessary for security, "indignities" against Palestinians.
• Biden undermined Israel's security and sovereignty by calling for the Palestinian Authority to share control of the Israel-Jordanian crossings; and by pressuring Israel to allow more access for Israel for Palestinians from Gaza.
• Biden rejoined the Israel-bashing UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), initially as an observer and then "proudly" as a full member.  The Trump administration had quit the UNHRC because the UNHRC persistently attacks human-rights-loving Israel, and fails to act against real human rights violators.
• Biden pressured Israel to legalize massive illegal Arab building in Area C – the area of Judea-Samaria lawfully under full Israeli administrative control.
• Biden repeatedly praised antisemites and Israel-bashers Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.  On May 18, 2021, Biden told Tlaib: "I admire your intellect, I admire your passion, and I admire your concern for so many other people.  And it's my feelings from my heart, I pray that your grandmom and family are well. You're a fighter.  And, God, thank you for being a fighter."   On April 3, 2023, Biden said "Congressman [sic] Omar, I want to thank you for being here.  You never stop working to level the playing field for everybody. . . .  And on May 1, 2023, at the White House Eid al-Fitr party, Biden publicly told Jewhating Israel-bashers Omar and Tlaib that they looked beautiful.
• The Biden administration backtracked on US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.  In a CNN interview on February 8, 2021, Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked if the Biden administration would continue to "see the Golan Heights as part of Israel."  Blinken only endorsed Israel's presence in the Golan for the time being, due to the Golan's importance to Israel's security, and said that the Biden administration would look at this again if the situation in Syria were to change.
• During a webinar with "Americans for Peace Now" (a radical group that supports BDS over the green line), Biden's former US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides bragged that his pressure stopped Jewish building in E-1, and wished he could stop all Jewish building in "East Jerusalem" (which includes the Jewish quarter) and Judea/Samaria.  Nides also euphemistically called the Palestinian Authority's "pay to slay" payments to terrorists to murder Jews  "martyr payments."   Nides further declared: "' These martyr payments . . . have caused an enormous amount of problems because it gives the 'haters' an excuse not to support the PA based on the argument that it is 'paying for people who killed Jews.'"   (Nides' thus stated that the terrorists and the PA are not the problem, but rather the problem is the people who oppose the PA's "pay to slay" payments.)
• Biden insulted Israel's prime minister by still not meeting with him at the White House, and by instead meeting opposition party leaders.  During Biden's recent meeting with Netanyahu at the United Nations on September 20, 2023, Biden again pushed for a Palestinian Arab (terror) state; again pressured Israel to not make what Biden refers to as "unilateral measures" (meaning Jews building homes in the Jewish homeland); and again opposed and interfered with Israel's needed internal judicial reforms.

In addition, over thirty Biden appointees and nominees to top posts affecting Jews and the Jewish state have alarming antisemitic or hostile-to-Israel backgrounds.  Many were also Obama-Biden administration officials.  ZOA's "Biden Appointments Watch" webpage illuminates their backgrounds.  A few examples:

• US Special Envoy to the Palestinians Hady Amr stated that he supports BDS and was "inspired" by the Intifada terror wars against Israel.
•  White House Office of Legislative Affairs Deputy Director Reema Dodin has supported suicide bombings.
• National Security Council Senior Director for Intelligence Maher Bitar organized an anti-Israel conference and ran a session on how to demonize Israel.
• US Commission on Int'l Religious Freedom appointee Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum retweeted her wife's praise for antisemite Linda Sarsour and said Kaddish for Hamas terrorists killed while trying to murder Jews, causing pro-Israel members of her LGBT synagogue to leave.
• National Security Advisor Avril Haines falsely condemned Israel for terrorism and incitement.
• US Envoy to Iran Robert Malley (lead Iran negotiator; now under investigation for mishandling classified information) is an Iran apologist who opposes sanctions on Iran.
• ExtremistUS AID Middle East assistant administrator nominee (and senior advisor to State Dept. sanctions coordinator) Tamara Cofman Wittes condemned the Abraham Accords as a "Naksa." ("Naksa" is the Arabic for "setback" or "catastrophe": Palestinian Arabs use this term to describe Arabs' failure to annihilate Israel in 1967.)
• And Biden's nominee for the next US Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, who served as Obama's chief-of-staff and Treasury Secretary: lied that the Iran deal contained "incredibly robust" inspections and would guarantee that Iran "never" obtained a nuclear bomb, to promote the deal to the Jewish community; was the treasury secretary during Obama's transfer of $1.7 billion of cash to Iran; and publicly defended the worst-ever anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334.  Res. 2334  labels the Jewish people's holiest sites including the Western Wall and Temple Mount, Hadassah Hospital, and Jewish Quarter as "occupied Arab land"; and says that the Jewish presence (and homes) in these historic Jewish lands has "no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law."  Res. 2334 also promotes Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

With friends like these...

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The Zionist Organization of America has strong objections to President Biden's nomination of Obama's Treasury Secretary and Chief of Staff, Jack Lew, to serve as the US Ambassador to Israel. Jack Lew shilled for the catastrophic Iran deal, "sticking to and trotting out every Obama administration line (and lie) to try to sell the Iran deal to the American-Jewish public."

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At a 2015 conference, Lew falsely told the American Jewish community that the Iran deal would "meet[] a tough standard of intense verification and scrutiny"; would be "built around an incredibly robust and intrusive inspections"; and would "effectively guarantee that Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon," among other lies.  (The deal in fact paved Iran's way to the nuclear bomb; gave Iran $150 of sanctions relief; had sunset provisions removing restrictions on Iran in a few years, that belied Lew's guarantee that Iran could never obtain a nuclear bomb; prevented inspectors from accessing military facilities where nuclear weaponization was likely to take place; made it almost impossible for inspectors to visit undeclared sites; gave Iran long advance time before inspections; and even in a side deal allowed Iran to take its own soil samples.)

Lew again grossly misstated the truth when he told his conference audience that "No administration has done more for Israel's security than this one [the Obama-Biden administration]."   Obama in fact promoted Israel's withdrawal to indefensible "Auschwitz borders" (the 1948 armistice lines); enriched Iran; armed Egypt when the Muslim Brotherhood temporarily took control; obscenely compared alleged "Palestinian suffering" to Jewish suffering in the Holocaust; and sent hundreds of millions of US tax dollars to the Palestinian Authority terror regime – which spends the same amount on "pay to slay" rewards to Arab terrorists to murder Jews and Americans.

No wonder the audience loudly and repeatedly booed Jack Lew.

Also, in 2016, Lew also deceptively publicly defended the Obama-orchestrated passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 – the most extreme, anti-Israel UNSC resolution ever.  Lew misleadingly downplayed the resolution as simply carrying out US administration policy opposing settlements, when the resolution was much worse:  In fact, UNSC Resolution 2334 shockingly and falsely labeled the Temple Mount, the Western Wall, Jerusalem's Jewish Quarter, Judea/Samaria, Hebrew University, Hadassah Hospital and the over-3,000-years old Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery as "occupied Arab land"; falsely claimed that the Jewish presence and homes in these historic Jewish lands have "no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation of international law"; and promoted BDS (anti-Israel boycotts, divestment, and sanctions).  The US Congress overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan Congressional resolution (H. Res. 11) condemning UNSC 2334.

The recent JTA article cites a previous JTA report that, according to unnamed insiders, Lew privately favored vetoing UNSC Resolution 2334.  If those insider reports are correct, that means that Lew knew how bad the resolution was when he misleadingly publicly supported it.

A record of honesty should be the basic requirement for any public servant.

Lew's false public statements about the Iran deal, UNSC Resolution 2334, and the Obama administration's record demonstrate that he cannot be trusted to tell the truth and deal honestly with Israel, the American Jewish community, and the US public. This record should disqualify Lew.

There are even more reasons to disqualify Lew, including the following: Lew's likely involvement, as treasury secretary, in the Obama-Biden administration's transfer of $1.7 billion in cash to Iran's mullahs; Lew's likely involvement, as Obama's treasury secretary and chief of staff, in other deleterious Obama-Biden administration policies, such as transferring hundreds of millions of dollars to the Palestinian Authority terror-fomenting regime; and the potential that the Biden administration is using Lew's Orthodox Jewish identity as "cover" to push for President Biden's long list of anti-Israel policies, including a Saudi deal that forces Israel to make concessions harming Israeli sovereignty and security.

There is also a palpable need for an authentically pro-Israel ambassador now, to repair the damage done by President Biden and his former ambassador, Tom Nides, who repeatedly disrespected, twisted the arms of, undermined, and interfered with Israel and her elected government.

It's useful to look back at the courageous public resignation of Mark Siegel from his position as President Jimmy Carter's deputy assistant for policy analysis and liaison to the American Jewish community in 1978 when Siegel was asked to lie to the Jewish community.  Siegel's integrity highlights the stark contrast to Jack Lew's quisling actions in remarkably similar circumstances.

Mark Siegel was a staunch liberal Democrat and a former Democratic National Committee executive director. Siegel's successful ballot challenge to a Carter competitor in New York was largely responsible for Carter's election in 1976.  But while serving in the White House, Siegel became increasingly concerned about the Carter administration's biased-against-Israel policies. (Carter's policies were many of the same policies of the Obama-Biden and current Biden administrations.)

In 1978, Carter's State Department gave Siegel the text of a speech to give verbatim to the American Jewish community, to promote Carter's deal to sell F-15s to Israel's enemies. The speech falsely claimed that the F-15s were merely defensive weapons. Siegel later recounted that, when he gave the speech to UJA young leaders in Washington, DC, he was loudly booed, and was told that he was saying lies. Siegel was shaken to be booed by his own people, and investigated. He found that he had indeed been lying for the Carter administration, and then resigned, with a detailed resignation letter. Siegel initially considered requesting another position in the administration but then realized that he could not serve such an administration in any post.  It was a tough decision, that made Siegel "persona non grata" for a time in his own party.  Yet, Siegel then bravely lobbied against the sale of the F-15s.  Later, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin gave Siegel the Yonatan Netanyahu award for courage.

Contrast Siegel's integrity to Jack Lew's disgraceful actions. Lew was loudly booed and heckled for lying at the Jerusalem Post conference in 2015. But unlike Mark Siegel, Jack Lew continued to support the disastrous Iran deal and the administration that spawned it.

And unlike Mark Siegel, Lew failed to resign when Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer wrote an open letter after UNSC Resolution 2334's passage, imploring Secretary Jack Lew to resign, in solidarity with the Jewish people.

We need a US Ambassador to Israel who has integrity. Lew is the wrong man for the job.

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The US State Department and left-wing Jewish organizations' moral compass is backward. They remain silent about the Palestinian Authority's top leaders inciting and incentivizing anti-Jewish terror – but wrongly condemn Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's statements about the need to protect Jews from the ongoing wave of Arab terror attacks. 

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It is evident to anyone with a shred of compassion and decency that innocent Jews have a right to be protected from Arab terrorism, even if Arabs are inconvenienced. To put it succinctly, Jewish lives matter. 

Saying this moral truth is neither racist nor inflammatory. But what is racist and inflammatory is paying Arabs to murder Jews, inciting the murder of Jews with antisemitic blood libels, teaching Arab children to hate and murder Jews, honoring and celebrating terrorists who killed Jews – all of which is done by the PA and its top leaders. 

Ben-Gvir was right to say, "My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs. The right to life comes before freedom of movement." 

 Jewish lives matter. It matters when a Jewish child sees her mother gunned down and murdered by Arab terrorists shooting at cars carrying Jews on the road – as happened just last week, and has been happening too often in recent months and years.  

 Stopping the murder of innocent Jewish lives must outweigh convenience to Palestinian Arabs. 

Yet, the morally bankrupt current US State Department told the Times of Israel that Ben Gvir's Jewish-life-preserving comments were "inflammatory" and compared Ben Gvir's comments to racist rhetoric.  

In addition, the American Jewish Committee blasted Ben-Gvir's comments, and shamefully, the far-left Israel Policy Forum and the Democratic Majority for Israel called his life-saving statements "racist." 

Moreover, Ben-Gvir's critics dishonestly distorted his comments and omitted that he was comparing the Jews' right to be free from terror attacks to inconveniences to Palestinian Arabs' freedom of movement. The critics deceptively portrayed Ben-Gvir as elevating Jewish freedom of movement above Palestinian Arab freedom of movement. 

 In stark contrast to these attacks on Ben-Gvir for trying to save lives at a time when Jews face daily Arab terror attacks, the State Department and left-wing Jewish groups said nothing about the latest antisemitic horrors from the PA. 

 For instance, just two weeks ago – on August 9, 2023 – Palestinian minister Mohammed Shtayyeh honored so-called "martyrs," that is terrorists, in a ceremony for Arab high school students. 

Shtayyeh told the impressionable students: "It is our right to resist [i.e., commit terror against] this criminal occupation [i.e., Israel]."

Shtayyeh also insisted that all of Israel was Palestinian Arab land ("every grain of soil of the motherland"); and insisted that the PA "will not change even one letter" of its school curriculum that teaches Palestinian Arabs to hate and murder Jews.

Official Palestinian media has repeatedly rebroadcasted its leader Mahmoud Abbas' infamous 2015 statement urging Arabs to "spill blood" to prevent Jews from "defiling" Al Aqsa with their "filthy feet," and to obtain Jerusalem, and urging that Allah will reward the "martyrs" who and are wounded or killed while spilling Jewish blood.

 Abbas blood-libeled Israel and openly called for the murder of Israelis in broadcasts again last year. He falsely accused the "Zionist occupier" of committing "premeditated murder . . . against our sons" and "We must dish out to them twice as much as we've received."  

 PA leadership makes sure that every Arab receives a constant drumbeat of incitement. For instance, around the same time that Abbas called for Arabs to "dish out" murder against Jews, the PA-controlled Nablus Fatah branch called for "invading towns and central junctions" of "the Zionist enemy and its settler herds." 

Official PA television rebroadcasts music videos and song and dance numbers teaching that life is insignificant; urging Arabs to commit suicide bombings in Haifa and other Israeli cities and to achieve bloody "sweet martyrdom," and glorifying suicide bombers who murdered or wounded scores of Israelis, including Jewish children. 

 At the PA ruling party Fatah's summer camp this summer, Arab high-school campers were taught to attack Israelis, handle Kalashnikov rifles, and sing about "revolution and a rifle."

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 Where are the State Department and left-wing Jewish groups' statements condemning Shtayyeh and Abbas' vicious incitement against Jews as racist and inflammatory?  

 Where are the statements condemning Shtayyeh for again refusing to stop teaching Arab schoolchildren to hate and kill Jews? Or condemning the ruling PA party for running terrorists-in-training summer camps?

 Where are the statements condemning the PA for continuing its racist, heinous policy of paying $400 million per year of "pay to slay" rewards to Arabs to murder Jews? 

 Nowhere. It's long past time for the US State Department and leftwing Jewish groups to start caring about Jewish lives, to stop condemning Israeli officials who want to save Jewish lives and to start condemning the PA and its leaders who are bent on murdering innocent Jewish people.

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The Zionist Organization of America strongly criticizes the Biden administration's giving billions of dollars to the terrorist Islamic Republic of Iran. In the latest, just-revealed swap deal, Iran will release five American hostages in return for an eye-popping ransom of $6 billion of sanctions relief.

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These billions of dollars will enable Iran to finance even more nuclear development and even more Iranian terrorism against Americans, Israelis, and other allies. The Iranian regime is pouring money and weapons into Samaria (a.k.a West Bank), providing the means for Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Palestinian Authority's terror rampages against innocent Israeli civilians, including young Jewish children.

The Iranian IRGC has also been building up, funding, training and supplying weapons to a network of Iran-backed terrorist organizations encircling Israel in Gaza, Judea/Samaria, Lebanon and Syria (See, e.g., "Biden Administration Abandoning Israel for Ruling Mullahs of Iran?"). Paying the Iranian mullahs these enormous, unprecedented sums will also obviously encourage terrorist Iran to perpetrate yet more hostage-taking of innocent Americans.

No one believes for a moment that Iran's mullahs will use billions of dollars of new wealth for humanitarian purposes. As Prime Minister Netanyahu's office pointed out: "Israel's position is known: arrangements that do not dismantle Iran's nuclear infrastructure do not stop its nuclear program and only provide it with funds that will go to terrorist elements sponsored by Iran."

The Wall Street Journal likewise explained: "Money is fungible, as the White House knows, and its 'humanitarian purposes' line is best understood as political cover to justify the money-for-hostages deal. In a competition for the funds between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the public health of the Iranian people, who do you think wins?"

The Biden administration has been using the same humanitarian purposes argument to enable other sanctions waivers benefiting Iran, even while Iran's spending on terrorism advances. In mid-June, Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken waived sanctions to clear the way for Iraq to pay Iran $2.76 billion for Iranian gas, which Iraq uses to generate electricity. In a US State Department briefing on June 13, 2023, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told the American public: "Number one, Iran can only access its funds held in accounts for Iraq for humanitarian and other non-sanctionable transactions."

But, then, in mid-July, according to Iraqi News and Reuters, Blinken signed a 120-day national security waiver allowing Iraq to deposit payments for electricity into non-Iraqi banks in third countries instead of restricted accounts in Iraq. The administration claimed that the accounts in third countries would also be "restricted."

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But, what else could be the reason for transferring the funds, other than enabling Iran more leeway to spend however it wants to? Iraqi News also reported that Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi revealed that Iraq pledged to facilitate Iran's access to its frozen assets in Iraq (citing the Islamic Republic News Agency). Iraqi News further reported that the head of the Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce, Yahya Al-Eshaq, previously stated that Iraq has paid all of $10 billion due to Iran (citing Al Arabiya News).

The Biden administration has also failed to take action against Iranian deals to evade sanctions, such as the Iranian-Iraqi agreement reached in July to swap Iranian crude oil for Iraqi gas.

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