A world-shaking catastrophe like the attack by Hamas on Israel is never the result of just one cause.
A world-shaking catastrophe like the attack by Hamas on Israel is never the result of just one cause. The truth is there are a dozen different factors that can and must be accounted for when determining what led to this attack. From the intelligence failures, to the false sense of security of the Iron Dome, going all the way back to the disengagement of Gaza in 2005—shares of blame can be assigned to each one.
Another one of those factors is the policy of the Biden administration. It would be foolish to assign all blame to Joe Biden, but naive to assign none.
Biden was well known for his foreign policy incompetence long before he won the presidency. He began his term with a basic principle: undo whatever Donald Trump did. It did not matter to Biden whether the Trump policy was good or bad—if Trump did it, he must undo it. This affected a wide range of domestic policies, but several key foreign ones as well.
In April 2021, Biden gave $235 million to Palestinians, either directly or through UNRWA, the United Nations agency tasked with resettling Palestinian refugees. A little over a year later, Biden announced another $316 million. Not only was this action foolish, it violated the Taylor Force Act, a 2018 law signed by Trump which forbids U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority when as long as it funds pay-to-slay programs. Almost 40 members of Congress sent a letter requesting an answer about the usage of these funds to Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
What happened to these funds? They were intended in part to go to Gaza for humanitarian purposes, yet we know that for nearly two decades Hamas has taken funds such as these and used them to build out its terror network. Concrete meant for schools was used instead to construct tunnels into civilian population centers. This was part of the reason Trump canceled the aid in 2018. Biden signaled to Hamas that U.S. dollars are readily available, no strings attached.
Biden didn’t just give the Palestinian Authority money, he granted it greater legitimacy in the eyes on the American government—legitimacy that Trump had removed.
