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| MBS seen here with former President Trump (Brookings) |
President Biden is a decent human being that acknowledges the horrors of the Holocaust. He’s not, however, visiting the Kotel. Surely he’s been there and done that on at least one of his many past visits to Israel before he became President. Perhaps he can be forgiven that symbolic gesture. Unless he using it to signal his return to the failed Middle East policies of the past. Which does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Kotel because of its location in East Jerusalem.
If that’s the reason - to imply that the Kotel isn’t ours is insulting since Judaism considers it the most sacred place on earth (which we can currently access). Making his non visit to the Kotel somewhat perplexing since even when those past polices were in place, every visiting President over many decades had visited the Kotel - including Barack Obama. It was even visited by a Pope who is in the process of being canonized by the Catholic church. That Biden, a religious Catholic, won’t do what his own infallible religious leader did makes this even more perplexing.
The President will also be visiting Palestinian institutions on the West Bank without any Israeli presence, something none of his predecessors did. And pledging millions to one of their hospitals. That too seems to signal a return to a failed policy of a 2 state solution that has proven to have no chance of success.
On the surface pledging money to a hospital seems like a magnanimous humanitarian gesture. But the Palestinian Authority is not known for its integrity. It is instead known for massive corruption - which has lined the pockets of its leaders. The reality is that this money will either be directly funneled to support families of terrorist that died trying to kill Jews. Or if given directly to the hospital – it will free up Palestinian funds that were originally intended for it and instead be given to terrorist families. Either way there will likely be of no additional benefit to that hospital.
The most interesting part of this trip is not what will happen in Israel. It will be what happens next. The President will be visiting oil rich Saudi Arabia and meeting with its defacto leader, MBS (Prince Mohammed bin Salman).
The hypocrisy of this visit is stunning. Not because I think it’s wrong. I don’t. National interests must sometimes outweigh actions that express our moral outrage.
In this case our energy needs need to be bolstered. The price of gasoline is so high that it affects just about every mode of transportation as well as everything we buy including food. Those suffering the most from this are people that are on the bottom of the economic pile.
The moral outrage is over the brutal assassination and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi was a harsh critic of MBS – and MBS has been linked to his murder.
So where is the hypocrisy? From Newsweek:
During his presidential campaign, Biden pledged that his administration would seek to make Saudi Arabia "the pariah that they are" and signaled that "they have to be held accountable."
This is President Biden’s attitude now:
"The president looks forward to outlining his affirmative vision for US engagement in the region over the coming months and years," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Tuesday.
"The president appreciates King Salman's leadership and his invitation. He looks forward to this important visit to Saudi Arabia, which has been a strategic partner of the United States for nearly eight decades," added Jean-Pierre.
I guess when it comes to the bottom line, Biden’s moral outrage is expendable.
As I indicated, I believe his latest comments are correct. This was former President Trump’s position form the start. Our national interests outweighed any moral outrage. He considered Saudi Arabia a strategic ally. He understood our energy needs and his polices reflected that. For which the Left harshly cirticized him. Accusing him of having no sense of morality or justice by ignoring Khashoggi’s death and MBS's connection to it.
Now it may be true that Trump has no sense of morality as general statement. But his strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia is not an instance of that. Unless one consider’s Biden to be equally immoral.
There has been some criticism of Biden for his hypocrisy with respect to MBS. But the way the Left treated the former President for essentially the same position is different by orders of magnitude from how they are treating Biden. Which makes the Left’s outsize outrage at Trump’s immorality with respect to MBS hypocritical as well.
Let me be clear. To say that Trump is not worthy of the Presidency is an understatement. Certainly not now post January 6th. He has lost any support I might have given him because of the policies he implemented during his term. Most of which I agreed with. I hope he doesn’t run in the primaries. And if he does, I sincerely hope he is not nominated.
But that is not what this post is about. It is about what I believe is behind the real hatred for Trump by the left. Which is about his policies. The very policies that I support. That hatred has little to do with his abrasive governing style, or his hateful tweets, or even his willingness to accept support from wherever it came – including racists and antisemites.
The way I see it, what this is really about is a culture war wherein Trump’s conservative polices are seen by a humanistic Left as grossly immoral to their secular values precisely because they are conservative. Most of which from an Orthodox Jewish perspective are quite moral and reflecting many of our religious values.
