The Biden Administration’s Double-Standards on Gaza - The US had no problem attacking hospitals in Afghanistan and Iraq
By: Joseph Puder
Friday, November 17, 2023
ITAI's WEEKLY MIDDLE EAST REPORT
One might call it hypocrisy or double standards, yet both are applicable to President Biden’s admonition to Israel that “the Shifa hospital in Gaza must be protected.” He added, “It is my hope and expectation that there will be less intrusive action.” Clearly the US hardly adhered to such a standard when on October 3, 2015, a US Air Force AC-130U gunship attacked the Kunduz Trauma Center operated by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) in the city of Kunduz, in the province of the same name in Northern Afghanistan. 42 people were killed and 30 injured. At the time, Joe Biden served as US Vice-President.
It is doubtful that the Afghan Taliban fighters used the trauma center as its military headquarters, using the doctors and patients as human shields and storing arms, including rockets in its basement. Hamas, however, is doing just that. Hamas is using the Shifa hospital as well as schools as launching pads to fire missiles at Israeli civilians. Moreover, the Taliban did not attack Americans on US soil and kill almost 50,000 Americans (in comparable numbers between Israeli and American populations) and wounded almost 6,000, but Hamas did. They invaded Israeli soil and committed heinous butchery of 1,400 Israelis, dragged 240 babies, young children, and girls they raped, as well as the elderly and Holocaust survivors to Gaza tunnels as hostages.
The Kunduz Trauma Center in Afghanistan was not the only time the US hit a hospital, and it was not even in a war situation. On December 9, 2016, the US military intentionally bombed a hospital in Mosul, Iraq, as part of its efforts to “eradicate” Islamic State (ISIS) fighters. Hamas’ barbarism is not only comparable to the Islamic State but exceeds it. Hamas beheaded babies, murdered women and then raped them, and they burned families alive. Israeli soldiers and international reporters found the charred bodies of families in an embrace.
International law gives hospitals special protection during war. But hospitals can lose those protections if combatants use them to hide fighters or store weapons, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Israel has therefore a moral right to enter the hospital and eliminate the Hamas killers hiding in the basement of the hospital. In fact, Israel has by far a more legal and moral right to do so than the US had to bomb the Mosul hospital.
Israel did not initiate this war with Hamas, it was brutally attacked by Hamas killers on Saturday, October 7, 2023, and the Jewish state has the right to defend itself by all the means available to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). While the IDF would not intentionally hurt the doctors and patients in the Shifa hospital, it must “eradicate” the infrastructure of the murderous terrorist organization called Hamas who set up their command center in the basement of the Shifa hospital.
Israeli citizens of southern Israel cannot be once again targets for the Hamas killers, and it is the duty of the Israeli government to provide them with the security to ensure that another such massacre that occurred on October 7, 2023, doesn’t repeat itself.
The US administration, and the European Union hypocrisy and double standards do not end with the demand “to protect the hospital.” It continues with repeated demands to provide a humanitarian pause in Gaza. CNN-TV reported (November 6, 2023) that US President Joe Biden’s administration “continues to urge its Israeli counterparts to pursue a humanitarian pause.” Such a pause would be inimical to Israel since it would enable Hamas to regroup and cause additional casualties to the IDF forces.
It is apparent that President Biden is now more concerned with next year’s elections than with Israel completing the job of eradicating Hamas from Gaza. With his radical Marxist Democrats in Congress, also known as the Squad, led by Muslim US Representatives Rashida Talib and Ilhan Omar, threatening to withdraw their support because of Biden’s backing Israel’s operation in Gaza, President Biden seems to be slowly backing away from Israel.
The unprovoked attack on Israel exempts the Jewish state from providing any aid to its mortal enemies. Yet, in order to keep faith with Biden who Israelis see as their major benefactor, Jerusalem has agreed to a four-hour cease-fire in order to allow Gazans to move southward to safe zones. The hypocrisy is underlined by the silence on the issue of the Israeli hostages. The Red Cross is busy aiding the Gazans, but the international organization has made no efforts to demand visitation with the Israeli hostages, to verify their medical condition, or even if they are alive. Moreover, the Biden administration has failed to condition aid to the Palestinians in Gaza on Hamas allowing neutral observers, including the Red Cross to visit the hostages.
The Biden administration has accepted the Gazan casualty figures despite knowing that they are deliberately inflated by the Gaza Health authorities, which are Hamas operatives. They have habitually blown up the number of women and children’s casualties and minimized the number of Hamas terrorists killed. Palestinian casualties have simply not been verified by a credible source.
Israelis are grateful to the Biden administration for its initial support, but now it seems that the administration is hedging on its previous steadfast support. Hamas is no different than ISIS, and it is allied with the “axis of evil,” including China, Iran, and Russia. Hamas is a terrorist organization recognized as such by the US government and the European Union. Unless the US and its democratic allies stand solid with the only democracy in the Middle East and most dependable US ally, the evil visited upon Israel on October 7, 2023, will spread to Europe and the US. Let us hope that Washington’s focus will be on the future of the civilized world, rather than the next election cycle. It is therefore imperative that the Administration allow Israel to get rid of Hamas without invoking double standards.