The Biden administration looks to be ramping up their criticisms of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, something that became increasingly pronounced last week given Vice President Kamala Harris’ unauthorized meeting with opposition leader Benny Gantz and Biden’s hot mic moment after his State of the Union address.
Last Thursday, Biden said after the State of the Union that he told Netanyahu that they were going to have a “come to Jesus” moment.
As Sen. Cruz explained about the implications of the president’s words, “he’s bragging to a fellow Democrat about how he was threatening the Prime Minister of Israel” and that he said so “as a way to like beat the hell out of him.” Cruz pointed out that “if a Republican had said that the media would lose their minds.”
“There is an offensive condescension, and understand what he means, the come to Jesus meeting,” Cruz explained. “What he means is ‘you stupid Israeli, stop killing Hamas terrorists.’ That’s what he’s saying. ‘We’re gonna force you, as a response to October 7, to allow the Hamas terrorist who murdered 1,200 Israelis, 1,200 Jews, who kidnapped Americans, who murdered Americans, we’re gonna force you to allow them to create their own state where they can engage in acts of terror like this over and over and over again’.”
Cruz highlighted how “it’s the anti-Israel animus in this administration and in, sadly, today’s Democrat Party,” which he said “keeps getting worse.” Such remarks, he continued, show “this is how Biden talks behind closed doors. ‘I’m gonna beat up these damned Israelis,’ like that’s just terrific.”
This isn’t exactly surprising news coming from the Biden administration. When Biden was vice president, the Obama administration was found to be involved in supporting a campaign to oust Netanyahu by a bipartisan Senate investigation.
As the Times of Israel wrote in July 2016:
According to the report, authored by the permanent subcommittee on investigations of the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the State Department gave grants totaling $349,276 to One Voice’s Israeli and Palestinian branches “to support peace negotiations” over a 14-month grant period that ended in November 2014.
After that period, the organizational infrastructure created with these funds was used by V15, a group that actively called on Israel’s to vote for “anyone but Bibi [Netanyahu]” during last year’s general election.