Mike Pence tears into Biden's foreign policy stances by saying 'weakness arouses evil' and he's lost 'four years of progress toward peace' with the Israel-Hamas conflict
Former Vice President Mike Pence assigned blame to President Joe Biden for the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, saying that 'weakness arouses evil.'
On Tuesday, Pence - a likely Republican 2024 presidential candidate - was out with a new video message and an op-ed for National Review touting the Trump-Pence administration's 'unrivaled' commitment to Israel.
'But from the moment President Biden took office, all that changed, and the results have reignited violence,' Pence said in the video, adding that Biden has lost 'four years of progress toward peace.'
Former Vice Presidnet Mike Pence was out with a video message Tuesday blasting President Joe Biden's 'weakness' on Isreal
Pence said Biden (pictured) shouldn't have started giving U.S. dollars to the Palestinian Authority and indicated interest in rejoining the Iran nuclear deal
Palestinian protesters confront Israeli troops at the Hawara checkpoint south of Nablus city in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday
'Instead of seeking peace through strength, President Biden has offered weakness and ambivalence and, tragically, our friends in Israel are paying a terrible price,' Pence also said.
Pence said the Biden administration was making a 'false equivalency' between Isreal and Hamas.
'One is a sovereign nation with a legitimate government, and a trusted ally. The other, an internationally recognized terrorist organization that has now fired more than 3,000 rockets at Jewish families and business in the past week alone,' Pence said. 'There is no moral equivalency between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.'
Pence outlined a number of Biden policies he believed contributed to the fresh conflict.
He blasted Biden for restoring U.S. funding to the Palestinian Authority and indicating a willingness to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, which former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018.
That deal had been negotiated by President Barack Obama's administration, while Biden was serving as vice president.
He promoted the last administration's decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and pointed to the Abraham Accords, peace deals between Israel and United Arab Emirates and also Bahrain, which were negotiated during Trump's term in office.
Pence hit Biden and Congressional Democrats - some of whom have been extremely critical of Israel's response to Hamas' rocket attacks - saying they 'abandoned unambiguous support for our ally Israel, emboldened our enemies, and turned their back on the policy that yielded historic peace deals in the Middle East.'
'Apparently, Biden learned nothing from the tragic foreign-policy blunders made during his time as vice president. President Obama's thin "red line" in Syria, his decision to "lead from behind" in Libya, and his slipshod withdrawal from Iraq each created power vacuums that were quickly filled by America’s enemies,' Pence wrote in National Review.
'Now Biden is repeating those grave errors by creating a power vacuum of his own. He has replaced strength with weakness, moral clarity with confusion, and loyalty with betrayal,' Pence continued. 'Biden's void, too, is being filled by America's enemies - and Israelis are paying the price in blood.'
'Americans should pray for the peace of Jerusalem and stand without apology for our most cherished ally, Israel, until the violence is quelled and Israel’s security is restored,' the former vice president added.
During the Trump years, the now former president put his son-in-law Jared Kushner in charge of coming up with a peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
It was rejected, in part, because it was too biased in favor of Israel.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki pointed to Kushner's plan when asked Tuesday if the Biden administration believed the thinking behind the Abraham Accords should be reconsidered.
'I would say that we are not following the same tactics of the prior administration. We - the president has reinstated humanitarian assistance and security assistance to the Palestinians. That's something that was stopped back in 2018 and we felt was not a constructive action by the prior administration,' Psaki said.
'Aside from putting forward a peace proposal that was dead on arrival, we don't think they did anything constructive, really, to bring an end to the longstanding conflict in the Middle East,' the press secretary added.
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