(The Center Square) – Israeli leaders and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, are pushing back against responses by the Biden administration to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
At an event in Dallas held on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel held by the nonprofit America for Israel, Cruz said after the attack, the State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs tweeted, “Israel must not respond. There must be no military response.” He replied, saying, “This is disgraceful. Whoever wrote it should be fired and it should be deleted.” Within minutes, the post was deleted, he said.
The next day, October 8, 2023, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted that he’d spoken to the Turkish foreign minister “and we have agreed that Israel must not retaliate and there must be no military response whatsoever,” Cruz said.
Turkey’s president also compared Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolph Hitler and called for “an alliance of humanity” to stop his “murder network.”
Cruz said Blinken’s position was “utterly disgraceful” and his social media post “should be deleted again. They deleted it within minutes,” he said.
Israel must eliminate the Islamic terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, largely funded by Iran, Cruz says, because it’s “unquestionably in the national security interest of Israel and unquestionably in the national security interest of America.”
One year into the conflict with Hamas, Iran launched 200 missiles at Israel. Afterwards, President Joe Biden told reporters that “all seven of us [G7 country leaders] agree that they [Israel] have a right to respond but they should respond proportionally.” France’s president called for a ceasefire and an Israeli weapons embargo.
At the Dallas event, a member of the Israeli Knesset questioned Biden’s remarks and Cruz said those calling for a cease fire with terrorists were “siding with genocidal maniacs.”
Israeli MK Ohad Tal, Knesset Chair US/Israel Relations Caucus, asked what a proportionate response would be to Iran “terrorizing Israel for 30 years, building a network of proxies all around the Middle East in order to attack Israel.”
He cited “Hezbollah launching 150,000 ballistic missiles, Shiite militias in Syria with 40,000 soldiers, same number of militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen and so many other forces.” He said Iran “sent Hamas on October 7 to slaughter, to burn families alive. Hezbollah shot at Israel about 1,200 rockets only in the past year. … Are we supposed to go to Iran to rape, to slaughter, to kill, to burn” Iranians, he asked. “Is this what we’re supposed to do? … We are supposed to wait for Iran to arm their missiles with nuclear warheads?”
Everyone in the west and America “should wake up and realize that we are serving the same purpose” against Iran, he said. “We are fighting your war.”
In a social media post, Netanyahu explained that “Israel is defending itself on 7 fronts against the enemies of civilization. We’re fighting in Gaza against Hamas, those savages who murdered, raped, beheaded, and burned our people on October 7. We’re fighting in Lebanon against Hezbollah, the most heavily armed terror organization, which was planning an even greater massacre than October 7 on our northern borders, and that has rocketed Israeli towns and cities for nearly a year.
“We’re fighting against the Houthis in Yemen and the Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria that together have launched hundreds of drones and missile attacks against Israel. We’re fighting against terrorists in Judea and Samaria who are trying to murder civilians in the heart of our cities. And we’re fighting against Iran, which last week fired over 200 ballistic missiles directly at Israel, and which stands behind the seven-front war against Israel.”
Netanyahu said, “all civilized countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side.” While some western leaders call for an arms embargo against Israel, he asked if Iran was imposing one on Hezbollah, the Houthis or Hamas.
With or without the west’s support, Netanyahu said, “Israel is defending civilizations against those who seek to impose a dark age of fanaticism on all of us. … Israel will fight until the battle is won, for our sake and for the sake of the peace and security of the entire world.”
On Wednesday, Biden spoke with Netanyahu and “affirmed his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” and “condemned unequivocally” Iran’s ballistic missile attack, according to a read out of the call issued by the White House.
Biden also “emphasized the need for a diplomatic arrangement” between Israel and Lebanon, urged Israel “to renew diplomacy” with Hamas “to release the hostages” still being held for over one year, and facilitate humanitarian aid to Gaza, the statement says.
When it comes to the leaders of countries and terrorist groups that refer to Israel as “the little Satan” and to America as “the great Satan,” Cruz said, “The enemies of Israel are enemies of America. American policy should very simply be we stand unequivocally with Israel for as long as it takes.”
“If history teaches anything, it is that when somebody tells you they want to kill you, believe them,” he said.