How Not to Remember the Holocaust Biden has soothing words but still denies weapons to Israel.
President Biden had the right words for Holocaust Remembrance Day. “‘Never again,’ simply translated for me, means never forget,” he said Tuesday. “Here we are, not 75 years later, but just seven-and-a-half months” since Oct. 7, “and people are already forgetting.” Detailing Hamas’s crimes and responsibility for the war, the president concluded, “I have not forgotten.”
Has he really? On the same day, Politico reported, “The Biden administration is holding up shipments of two types of Boeing-made precision bombs to send a political message to Israel, according to a U.S. official and six other people with knowledge of the deliberations.” The Administration “is essentially taking action through inaction” to deprive Israel of the means to defeat the perpetrators of Oct. 7.
Small Diameter Bombs and Joint Direct Attack Munitions “were ready to be shipped to Israel when word of the hold came down,” Politico writes, adding to Wall Street Journal and Axios reporting. The holdup was political. The Journal reports that stalled weapons deals also include tank ammo and mortar rounds.
Words are cheap. What does it mean for Mr. Biden to say, “We must give hate no safe harbor,” to polite applause for Holocaust Remembrance Day, while insisting that Israel give Hamas safe harbor in Rafah?
The Biden team has been blasting Israel for not taking a more surgical approach in Gaza. But in denying Israel precision weapons, it makes clear that its goal isn’t to change how Israel fights. It seeks to stop Israel from fighting Hamas.
The sad result may be to force Israel to rely more on unguided bombs that would do more harm to non-combatants. This would be only the latest sign of the confused Biden policy abroad.
The President was right to recognize the “ferocious surge of antisemitism in America and around the world,” and his condemnation of it on campus is important. “Violent attacks, destroying property is not peaceful protest,” he added. “It’s against the law.”
He’s right, and he should name names. National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), whose campus chapters lead the encampments, called Oct. 7 “a historic win for the Palestinian resistance.” Columbia’s SJP declared “full solidarity with Palestinian resistance” on Oct. 9, praising the “historic” attack “despite the odds.”
For too many in the West, Holocaust remembrance means feeling sad for the Jews. Israelis, by contrast, emphasize Jewish self-defense against genocidal enemies—precisely what Mr. Biden undermines when he offers words of comfort while holding up the weapons Israel needs to defeat Hamas.
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