Worse, abandoning Israel sends a troubling message to U.S. allies worldwide: in times of crisis, do not rely on American support.

The Biden administration has eroded trust and damaged U.S. credibility on the global stage even further than it already had done after surrendering Afghanistan and allowing China to kill more than a million Americans with Covid-19, or poisoning to death more than 80,000 Americans each year with fentanyl, or permitting China to commit massive espionage and intellectual property theft with no consequences at all.

Biden's decision has projected an image of weakness rather than leadership, further tarnishing America's reputation as a steadfast defender of the free world. Instead, the Biden administration is seen globally as siding with terrorists -- the Taliban in Afghanistan, the terror-funding Qataris, the genocidal Communist government of China, and the annual winner of the world's top, largest, leading "state sponsor of terrorism," Iran.

Such a milestone shift in U.S. foreign policy displays a concerning departure from longstanding principles of backing the Free World. Overall, the development is deeply detrimental to U.S. interests. It threatens the stability of international relations, and for the perception of America's role as a leading global power, it is nothing short of devastating.

The Israeli government, according to reports, is being pressured by the Biden administration to send the money to the PA. This addled and dangerous proposal amounts to expecting the Jews to support the same people who are murdering them. The Biden administration has also been launching a legal and diplomatic offensive to discredit, isolate, and penalize Israel for trying to defend itself against terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, the PA, instead of acknowledging that it is terrified to go back to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, is trying to pressure Israel into accepting the creation of a Palestinian state and releasing the tax revenues. Unbelievably, the PA and the Biden administration apparently want Israel to grant Palestinians a state that will be ruled by the same murders, rapists and kidnappers who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.

Abbas might one day return to the Gaza Strip – but only when he sees that Hamas has lost all military might and is no longer in control. Meanwhile, he feels safe and secure being in the West Bank, where Israel is in charge of overall security and is fighting against Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist proxies. He knows that without Israel's security presence in the West Bank, Hamas would have killed him and toppled the PA long ago.

Allowing Hamas to win its war against Israel would delight two countries deeply committed to supporting terrorism. The first is Qatar, an oil-field protected by a US air base, and a country with which President Joe Biden's brother, James, according to court testimony, might reportedly have had business dealings

The second country is Iran, repeatedly designated as the "leading state sponsor of terrorism" and currently racing toward nuclear weapons capability. The Iranian regime – which presently controls four Middle East capitals in addition to its own -- Sanaa, Damascus, Beirut and Baghdad -- wishes to take over the Middle East, as well as oil-and-mineral-rich Sudan. Iran's rulers would undoubtedly not only pave the way for more October 7-style atrocities against Israel, but also other neighbors -- Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Egypt and Bahrain -- especially if Iran obtains nuclear weapons.

Abbas, fearful of being called a traitor, is reluctant to take action against the terrorists. It might mean his death. Additionally, he is most likely not pursuing the terrorists because they do not directly threaten him or the PA.

If a Palestinian leader does not even have the bravery to condemn the unimaginable Hamas atrocities of October 7, how can one expect him to confront terrorism emanating from his Palestinian Authority?

The Gaza Strip needs moderate and pragmatic leaders who will embark on a process of deradicalizing and reeducating Gazans to lead peaceful, prosperous and constructive lives, freed of subjugation by their leaders, who will finally prepare their people for peace in the region. At the moment, unfortunately, among the Palestinians, no such leaders exist.

Moscow has undertaken a radical change in its involvement in the Sudanese conflict, with the Kremlin now providing al-Burhan's Islamist-aligned SAF its "uncapped" military support.

In return, Moscow is hoping the Sudanese leader will honour a deal struck in 2020 to allow Russia to establish a naval base in Port Sudan, a move that would enable the Russian navy to threaten directly Western trade routes passing through the Red Sea.

If, as now seems likely, both Russia and Iran, together with China, succeed in deepening their foothold in Sudan, as well as gaining access to key maritime bases such as Port Sudan, they will be in a strong position to challenge the West's ability to protect key shipping routes in the Red Sea.

Iran's presence in Sudan, moreover, will present a major challenge to Israel: it will complete Tehran's strategic encirclement of the Israelis.

The Western powers must act urgently to protect this pivotal African state from falling into the hands of hostile autocratic regimes, such as Iran, Russia and China, which seek to use Sudan as a base from which to maintain their assault of the West and its key allies in the region.

The result of making us rely on partisan secondary sources rather than our own direct observations is inevitable distrust in the justice system. If "Sunlight is the best disinfectant," lack of visibility is a major source of distrust.

The framers of the Constitution intended all judicial proceedings to be public – no secret trials. At the time of the framing, public meant open to print journalists. Today, public means audio and video publication.

The New York trial of Trump is a national scandal. There is no real crime. The judge has allowed testimony that is highly prejudicial and irrelevant. He has made numerous unfair rulings, of which the prosecution has taken advantage. The public has the right to see this abuse... so that we all can judge for ourselves and not allow possibly biased reporters to judge for us.

"A one-hundred-dollar bill does wonders with an Egyptian police officer at a Sinai roadblock who intercepts a truck packed with 'pipes.'" — Efraim Inbar and Mordechai Kedar, BESA Center, January 22, 2009.

This is just another example of how, when Palestinians become victims of oppressive measures taken against them by their Arab brothers, the world does not care a bit. About a decade ago, when Egypt demolished dozens of houses and buildings in Rafah as part of a campaign to combat terrorism, no one said a word against the Egyptians -- or even bothered to look.

If the Egyptians actually cared about the Palestinians, instead of blocking the entry of aid into the Gaza Strip, they could easily coordinate with Israel though alternative border crossings such as the nearby Kerem Shalom terminal.

Evidently the Egyptians would rather see the Gazans starve; then, the international community, as usual, would hold only Israel responsible.

That is the real problem: Where is the demand from the international community for Egypt to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip? Where are social media posts, the US college campus protests, and the op-eds condemning Egypt for deliberately withholding aid from Gaza's Palestinians?

Why doesn't the Biden administration pressure Egypt, and not just Israel, to allow aid to enter Gaza for the Palestinians?

Egypt has, in fact, been imposing a blockade on the Gaza Strip for the past 15 years.... Where are the protestors calling to stop the billions in aid to Egypt? They do not, of course, exist. The protests were never about helping Palestinians. They were always only about attacking Jews.

This is the same Egypt that been displacing thousands of Palestinians from Rafah after demolishing their homes and is now blocking aid to the Palestinians, that has piously decided to join the South African case against Israel at the ICJ.

Now that Israel is attempting to dismantle a terrorist group whose primary objective is the elimination of Israel, the Biden administration and many in the international community suddenly claim they are "outraged."

If they really want to help the Palestinians, they could begin by filing cases against Egypt and the Arab states in the region that, for many decades, have turned their backs on the Palestinians and paid billions to their governments to keep on mistreating them.

The proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations give the WHO Director General the authority to declare not just an actual but a potential international public health emergency and set out binding recommendations on how to address it, whether individual states agree with him or not.

Worse, no criticism of the new WHO regime and its decisions to declare potential or actual pandemics, lockdowns and treatment, including vaccines, will be allowed under the amended IHR... In other words, the government lies, obfuscations and cover-ups that so dominated the last pandemic will become normalized, and all criticism outlawed.

Already, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (not a medical doctor) has castigated critics of the planned amendments and new Pandemic Treaty as conspiracy theorists who spread "fake news, lies and conspiracy theories."

Since the UN claims that to "owns the science," it is now brainwashing the public into believing that "climate change" threatens global health. This view makes it likely that you will one day find yourself in a WHO-mandated lockdown to mitigate the effects of the "climate crisis," along with limits on where you go, how you may get there, what you do, and what you can own.

The US is already seeing forerunners of this in the Biden administration's unconstitutional executive orders, possibly including his attempts to ban internal combustion engine vehicles and gas stoves; mandating dishwashing machines that may need repeated cycles to clean dishes, and new stricter regulations on air conditioners, washing machines, refrigerators, and even leaf-blowers -- and this is only the beginning.

The WHO is not elected, has no democratic legitimacy, is not accountable to anyone and has no control mechanisms to restrain its reach. After the horrifying failures of the WHO during Covid-19, the answer is not to give the organization more power, but to disengage from it entirely.

The UN and the WHO evidently want unlimited control. If they are not stopped right now by national governments that refuse to approve the new Pandemic Treaty and proposed International Health Regulations amendments, unlimited control is what they will have -- and it is we who will have given it to them.

The Biden administration does not appear ever to have issued the slightest threat, warning or ultimatum to the authors of the war: Hamas, Iran or Qatar.

US Senator Chuck Schumer, after declaring himself a friend and defender of Israel, suggested overthrowing Israel's democratically elected prime minister, and -- as if Israel, and not America, were within his jurisdiction -- called for new elections.

Meanwhile in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where anti-government demonstrations began again, one of their leaders, Ami Dror, revealed on social media that the demonstrations and riots are part of a plan by the Biden administration to bring down the Netanyahu government.... The US State Department has, for more than a year, been providing financial support for protests hostile to the Netanyahu government.

Biden, it seems, is frustrated that Netanyahu is objecting to humanitarian aid -- which basically resupplies Hamas. Hamas, Israel's argument goes, released hostages only after unremitting pressure. Relieving that pressure by backing Hamas makes the probability of seeing any more hostages released less likely. Biden is also reportedly frustrated that Netanyahu, for some inexplicable reason, objects to the creation of a terrorist Palestinian state next door.

One cannot leave aside that the Biden administration, through ignoring sanctions on Iranian oil, has allowed the Iran's regime to earn up to an estimated $100 billion... Without those funds, the massacre of October 7 would not have been possible, Hezbollah would not have been able to fire so many missiles into Israel from Lebanon, and Iran itself would not have been able to launch more than 300 drones and ballistic missiles at Israel in April, and to attack US troops more than 150 times on, just since October 7, 2023 -- evidently in an attempt to drive the US out of the Middle East.

The Biden administration, it seems, does not want a definitive end of the conflict -- as with Ukraine as well -- especially if the end would entail the defeat of Hamas or Russia. Hamas is a protégé of Qatar and Iran, the world's two leading state sponsors of terrorism. The Biden administration has been rewarding them -- Iran with money and Qatar with renewing its protection by Al-Udeid Air Base, headquarters of America's CENTCOM, as well as controlling the new terror pier the US has built in Gaza At the same time, the Biden administration is falsely accusing Israel of violating human rights.

The Biden administration may even be complicit in the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that might be issued by the International Criminal Court – possibly as a way to dispense with him.

The mullahs are, in effect, using their proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and so on -- as their "human shields".

The Biden administration has placed the existence of Israel in danger to protect Biden from the dangerous voters of Michigan.

Worse, with the Biden administration now having come down squarely against Israel and on the side of Iran, Qatar and Hamas, they have to feel no inclination to agree to anything. Why should they? Iran's mullahs have a new proxy, the United States, backing their terrorism for them.

Even worse, at almost the same time as the US told Israel it was withholding arms shipments that Congress had already approved (a move for which Democrats tried to impeach then President Donald Trump), the Biden administration waived sanctions for arms purchases by Lebanon, Qatar and Iraq -- countries that host groups working to destroy Israel.

Worst of all, if you are Ukraine, Taiwan, China, Russia, Japan – just about any US ally or foe -- you probably cannot avoid thinking something like: We have watched the supposedly mighty US surrender Afghanistan, its ally of 20 years, to a bunch of terrorists, the Taliban. Now we are watching the US surrender its closest ally in the Middle East, Israel, the only democracy there, to terrorists: to Hezbollah in Lebanon with 150,000 rockets and missiles pointed at Israel, and to Hamas in Gaza by sending "humanitarian aid," that will used by terrorists.

Where are any prosecutions or sanctions by the UN and international courts for war crimes and human rights violations on countries such as Qatar (here and here), China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Nigeria, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, Yemen and Sudan?

Currently, the Biden administration appears to want three things: Netanyahu OUT – reportedly to be replaced by a puppet who will do whatever the US tells him; a terrorist Palestinian state IN, and to preserve Iran and Qatar's client, the terrorist group, Hamas. So far, all the pressure from Washington has been on Israel, none at all on Hamas or on its patrons, Qatar and Iran. The fighting could indeed stop tomorrow if either of them or the US seriously ordered Hamas to stop fighting and immediately return the 132 remaining hostages.

Did the Biden administration even ask?

[T]he protest feeds on media attention. As soon as TV cameras are switched off, the shouting of slogans dies down.

[E]even if all the UN resolutions were implemented, they would not reassure Israel and won't quench Hamas' "from the river to the sea" thirst.

For seven decades, Israelis accepted the "advice" of the US and its European allies to accept a fish-tail end to its wars rather than the victory won on the battlefield. Beyond Hamas, which wants everything, Palestinians, too, have realized that listening to advice from "well-wishers" like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W Bush, the inventor of the "roadmap" to a two-state solution, will not provide even half a state for them.

Today's protesters know little about what they are rebelling against and, at least in our experience of talking to some of them in Paris and reading and/or hearing what their counterparts say on American campuses, don't even wish to know.

Ayatollah Khamenei's initial issuance of a fatwa against nuclear weapons coincided with damning revelations in 2002: Iran was exposed clandestinely engaging in nuclear activities, including uranium enrichment, at covert facilities in Natanz and Arak.

These activities flamboyantly violated the principles outlined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran was a signatory.

The timing of Khamenei's fatwa should only raise questions about its authenticity and underlying motive: it likely an attempt to mitigate international backlash and deflect scrutiny away from Iran's covert nuclear endeavors.

Iran's constitution explicitly mandates that both the Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are not only tasked with safeguarding the nation's frontiers, but also with advancing the ideological mission of jihad in the name of Allah. This mission entails the propagation and imposition of Allah's law worldwide and reflects the regime's fervent commitment to spreading its Islamic revolutionary principles beyond its own confines.

Such a constitutionally mandated objective underscores the regime's revolutionary zeal and underscores the potential significance of acquiring nuclear weapons as a means of furthering its ideological agenda on a global scale.

These assaults are not only aimed at Israel and its inhabitants but, ultimately, at the West.

Adversaries of the West -- whether religious fundamentalists or authoritarian states such as China, Russia, and Iran and its allies -- appear intent upon imposing a new totalitarian world order. To do so, they seek destruction of the two main countries standing in their way: United States of America and Israel, the global champions of democracy, freedom, Western values, and human rights.

Regrettably, with freedom often comes the need to protect it, at times by force, from those who would take it away. Sometimes, this requires measures open to criticism by those who may have a different goal....

"Therefore, having judged that to be happy means to be free, and to be free means to be brave, we do not shy away from the risks of war." — Pericles, funeral oration, 432 BCE.

Israel... is fighting for the values of civilization opposing terrorist barbarism so that the rest of us in the West will not have to. We should be sending whatever they need to end the terrorism, not withholding precision-guided weapons -- especially, as we sanctimoniously claim, if we do not want to harm civilians.

"I have faith in the Jewish people. Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from her horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land." – Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, December 10, 1986.

As people of peace, the warriors and all citizens of Israel long for such a time with all their hearts, but first there are battles to be won.

Hamas and Egypt were quick to issue statements denouncing the capture of the Rafah border crossing, claiming that the move would "threaten" the lives of the Palestinians and hinder the entry of humanitarian and relief aid into the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptians and Hamas have good reason to be angry with the presence of the IDF at the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing. For several years, Palestinians who wanted to exit the Gaza Strip via the terminal have alleged that they had to bribe Hamas and officials. Hamas and Egypt are now afraid of losing the Palestinian milk-cow.

"It is our right to travel without bribes and without corruption. We are living under a [Hamas] dictatorship." Abu Amr was later arrested by Hamas security officers, who confiscated her mobile phone and ordered her to delete the Facebook post. — Noha Abu Amr, Palestinian journalist, 24.ae, January 24, 2024

[A] Palestinian man in the US [said] he paid $9,000 to get his wife and children on the list. On the day of travel, he was told his children's names were not listed and he would have to pay an extra $3,000. He said the brokers were "trying to trade in the blood of Gazans".

[T]he company [Hala Consulting and Tourism Services] owned by an influential Egyptian businessman and ally of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi] is estimated to have made a minimum of $118 million from desperate Palestinians trying to leave the Gaza Strip. "By the end of this year, if the April average continues, the company may earn well over half a billion dollars from the so-called VIP list of people Hala is transferring across the Gaza-Egypt border. " — Middle East Eye, May 1, 2024.

An international charity [that does not want to be named] with extensive experience in providing emergency aid in wars...is also being forced to pay $5,000 per truck to a company linked to Egypt's General Intelligence Service (GIS) to get aid into the Gaza Strip. — Middle East Eye, January 30, 2024.

The Palestinians actually owe Israel a huge debt of gratitude for finally driving Hamas out of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing.

Egypt and Hamas are, it seems, indifferent to the pain endured by the Palestinians they are effectively imprisoning. All that matters to them is making more money off anyone desperate to leave the Gaza Strip.

"The Chinese are imposing a kind of sanction on us. They don't officially declare it, but they are delaying shipments to Israel.... In electronic products, there are tens of thousands of components, but if even one component doesn't arrive, we cannot deliver the product." — Unnamed senior figure in a factory, Ynet, December 24, 2023.

Also immensely disturbing is that "massive" amounts of advanced Chinese military equipment were found in Gaza by the IDF during its military operations there.

"[I]f you set up systems with technology for critical infrastructure, like electricity, energy, water, transport, these are tied to one another. One can be used to bring the other down." — Harel Manshari, Head of Cyber at the Holon Institute of Technology and research fellow at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, JNS, January 8, 2024.

China recently hosted delegations from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority's ruling Fatah faction, ostensibly to facilitate "unity" between the two factions, all the while pretending to be a neutral mediator interested in peace in the region.

Is the enemy, already inside Israel's gates, also inside the US?

If the Saudis were really interested in normalizing their relations with Israel, they could have done so long ago. Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is delaying the move, in part, reportedly, out of fear of facing a backlash from his own people. He may, however, also have serious reservations that he would prefer not to talk about in public.

Like most Arabs, the Saudis could not care less about a Palestinian state and might secretly prefer not to have one at all. They are no doubt aware that the Palestinians themselves are the biggest obstacle to the establishment of a state of their own. During the past eight decades, they have acted as a serial wrecking ball to every peaceful place they set foot.

The last thing most Arab states want is a Hamas-controlled Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain justifiably regard Hamas and other Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat to their national security, most likely the main reason they all have refused to take in Gazan refugees.

Blinken's claim that a Palestinian state would "isolate" Iran and its proxies is pure nonsense. The opposite is the case. Iran, its proxies and Qatar would doubtless be extremely happy if the Biden administration would allow them to establish a terrorist state on Israel's doorstep. This state would be used by Iran and its terrorists as a launching pad for more October 7-style massacres of Israelis to further their goal of destroying first Israel, then the Arab states.

It is Israel -- not Iran -- that will find itself "isolated" and surrounded by Iran-backed Islamist terrorist groups...

A Middle East that includes a Palestinian state controlled by Iran and Islamist terrorists will be a less secure region, especially after Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

Biden, by reconfirming that terrorism "works," would embolden all the other terrorists. Just keep on terrorizing everyone, and, when your demands are met, keep on increasing and hardening them.

More significantly, by appeasing Iran, Qatar and potential voters in Michigan by creating a Palestinian state, the Biden administration will in fact be inviting Iran to initiate still more attacks – not only on Israel but also on US forces in the Middle East.... If Iran finally coerces the US to withdraw from the region as it is reportedly thinking of doing, the regime will finally be able to take over its neighbors' oil fields and holy sites without worrying about the US interfering.

Meanwhile, as the Biden administration, busy trying to win re-election in November, seems to have no idea how to end all the conflicts it ignited, directly or indirectly, in Gaza, Ukraine and the Indo-Pacific. The US has been backing both sides of all of them. Iran, presumably taking advantage of these distractions, and perhaps as a consolation prize for losing so much of Hamas -– has been moving to take over Sudan. It is a country rich in oil, gold, rare earth minerals and terrorism -- and felicitously positioned to help Iran launch unlimited combat drones – the planet's new "cheap, instant air force" -- at both Israel and US forces, and enable Iran to use Sudan's port on the Red Sea to continue obstructing maritime traffic.

After all, if terrorism "works," why stop?

A year ago, Tesla held the No. 1 ranking in China's new-energy vehicle retail segment. In the first quarter of this year, the company had fallen to third place..... It is not clear that Tesla can compete in China, where the regime does just about everything it can to favor Chinese competitors.

Musk has made Tesla reliant on China, and China's rulers know that.

"What is there to stop them [Chinese officials] from going to Musk directly and saying, 'We'll call your line of credit early, unless you give us X, Y, or Z?'" — Congressional Republican aide, Washington Examiner, August 26, 2020.

"Musk should expect China to make demands for technology and data transfers to include Starlink and SpaceX heavy-lift rockets." — Blaine Holt, retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier general and technology entrepreneur, to Gatestone Institute, May 3, 2024.

"Will Congress now look the other way while the often-used CCP playbook of corporate blackmail plays out, compromising our security?" — Blaine Holt to Gatestone Institute, May 3, 2024.

"You have me, and I have you." — Chinese Premier Li Qiang to Elon Musk, CNN, April 28, 2024.

The words, ostensibly meant to show U.S.-China friendship, are in reality a warning. It is now clear that one person so beholden to China should not be so central to America's effort to stay in space.

"What makes the future in this case darker is Sudan's history of hosting extremists and jihadists from the far right and far left. During the previous regime, Sudan hosted Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Carlos the Jackal. This warm embrace of violent extremists earned Sudan a spot on the list of state sponsors of terrorism."— Areej Elhag, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, January 31, 2024.

The bottom line for America and Europe is that the strategy of engaging and appeasing Iran has failed miserably.

The U.S. and Europe must step up now to counter Iran's efforts in the Middle East and Sudan.

We cannot allow new "proxies of terror" for Iran.