US says Russia’s advance on Kharkiv is ‘all but over’

 The White House said Friday that Russia’s offensive in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region has stalled and is unlikely to advance any further.

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, said the arrival of U.S. weapons has helped change the trajectory of the battle around Kharkiv, which Russian forces mounted a major attack on around the middle of May.

“They have been able to thwart Russian advances, particularly around Kharkiv,” Kirby said. “The Russians really have kind of stalled out up there [and] … their advance on Kharkiv is all but over because they ran into the first line of defenses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and basically stopped, if not pulled back, some units.”

He added that Ukraine was still under pressure, and they were not taking anything for granted, but it “appears that they’ve stalled out,” noting that this assessment was shared between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Biden when the two met Friday in France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day.

In that meeting, Biden apologized for the months-long delay of new U.S. military aid to Ukraine, which Washington and Kyiv have both said led to Russian advances across the battlefield, including in Kharkiv and in the eastern Donetsk region.

In his Thursday speech marking D-Day, Biden argued that it was vital to once again stand up for democracy and freedom as the Allies did in World War II as he compared the fight against Nazi Germany to Russia’s ongoing assault against Ukraine.

Russia’s offensive in Kharkiv came as Ukraine was just beginning to receive new U.S. military aid, with Moscow looking to exploit the delay of more weapons and defenses and take more ground before the assistance arrived in full force.

The renewed push sparked fears that Ukraine would be stretched thin as it also defends against Russian forces pushing forward in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Russia made some gains in Kharkiv when the offensive was launched, capturing towns and progressing toward the city of Kharkiv, but forces are still locked into fighting north of the city, including major battles around the town of Vovchansk.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4710848-white-house-russia-advance-ukraine-kharkiv-region-stalled/

Biden’s Justice Department Deliberately Invented A Felony Charge Against My Son

 In the summer of 2020, America was in flames as Antifa and Black Lives Matter set fire to city after city—Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and so many more.

Police stations were torched, and dozens of officers were injured as all manner of projectiles, from rocks to Molotov cocktails, were hurled at them. Dozens of people died. The damage was estimated at over $1.2 billion, the highest in history.

In January of 2021, the Biden administration came to town. With 35,000 FBI agents and support personnel at his disposal, and armed with an annual $10.8 billion budget, Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland had everything he needed to bring the criminals to bear.

But there was no outrage from the Justice Department. Instead, with a lonely exception here and there, there was silence. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of crimes across the country never have been, nor ever will be, prosecuted. New York City is paying rioters $13 million in reparations for arresting them. Many other cities across the U.S. are negotiating similar settlements.

Perhaps it is because Biden’s Justice Department had other priorities. It has been obsessed with putting in prison anyone and everyone who participated in the “insurrection” of Jan. 6.

My son does not belong to any political group. His only organized involvement during the 2020 elections was with a local church group that met daily to pray the rosary for America. But like tens of millions of other Americans, my son believed the 2020 presidential election had been stolen, so on Jan. 6, he traveled to Washington, D.C., and joined with over 100,000 other patriots to show their support for the man they believed had won and deserved to be certified.

But then things went wrong, and he was part of it. He entered the Capitol after breaking two windows. Ultimately, he was arrested and charged. He accepted responsibility for these felony offenses as well as other ancillary misconduct. But when he would not plead guilty to the felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding—as unconstitutional a charge as there ever was, and one which is about to be tossed out by the Supreme Court—the Biden Justice Department unloaded.

Without the obstruction charge, the Jan. 6 “insurrection” narrative would be vaporized. The vast majority of protesters would be no guiltier than the hundreds of pro-Hamas protesters who stormed the Capitol last October; or Code Pink protesters who regularly disrupt congressional hearings; or even Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who tripped a fire alarm (and lied about it) to prevent a House vote. All who committed those infractions were charged with misdemeanors and paid meaningless fines.

Were justice equally distributed, my son would be similarly guilty, with an additional punishment for breaking two windows. One could project probation and financial restitution. But this is Joe Biden’s Justice Department, and we knew that would not be enough.

Two and a half years after he was charged, and on the eve of his trial, the hammer dropped. Suddenly the Justice Department found he had assaulted—barreled into,” they said—a policeman. The footage provided as evidence was so grainy and from such a distance that the judge himself acknowledged it was impossible to determine conclusively if my son had even touched the officer. Later, the judge would state emphatically that he wanted it understood that my son never attacked this or any other officer that day. But this is when the layman learns that “assault” does not necessarily mean attack. It also means “impede” or “interfere,” and since my son went forward toward an officer when pushed from behind by the now unruly mob–guilty.

But my son did interact with the police that day.

The prosecution had access to and had watched other video footage that day. One clip showed my son bringing water to an officer suffering from tear gas. A second video showed my son successfully commanding a menacing rioter to sheath his baseball bat after he had ignored similar demands from an endangered cop. There also exists footage showing my son helping yet another policeman to his feet after being knocked over.

This meant nothing to the “Justice” Department. It wanted a felony conviction, and when it got it, this out-of-control federal agency went for far more. As the sentencing date approached, it pinned yet another charge: terrorism enhancement. The Biden administration now wanted the court to equate my son, whose most serious crime ever was a traffic offense, to Osama bin Laden. They argued the applicable sentencing range was 22-27 years in prison.

The presiding judge would have none of it and declined to accept the enhancement. He sentenced my son to 45 months instead. But during the sentencing, this judge declared he had found something everyone had missed. Hidden in a footnote buried in their report, the prosecutors had provided the replacement cost for one broken window—$847. That amount made the offense a misdemeanor, not a felony. The prosecution knew this all along. The Justice Department deliberately had invented a felony charge.

Why did they go to such extremes against my son, to include inventing crimes and wanting him declared a terrorist?

This was not a pursuit of justice by a prosecution governed by principle. In Biden’s America, justice has no home for those who challenge it. This was a political prosecution using the full force of the federal government because my son, Leo Brent Bozell IV, carries his father’s name, and his father has influence and is supporting President Donald Trump in 2024. Ends justify means, and they will stop at nothing.

A criminal investigation into this corrupt Justice Department is long overdue. Those who have corrupted it know that in a new Trump administration, their days are numbered.

Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. 

https://dailycaller.com/2024/06/06/l-brent-bozell-iii-bidens-justice-department-deliberately-invented-a-felony-charge-against-my-son/

Mistrial? Trump 'Hush Money' Judge Suggests Juror May Have Had Predetermined Guilty Verdict

 The judge in the Trump 'hush money' case, Juan Merchan,  just issued a very strange note to both parties indicating that a comment made on the court's Facebook page suggests that one of the jurors may have arrived at a 'guilty' verdict before the end of the trial, and told a family member.

"My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted. Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!" reads the Facebook post highlighted by Merchan.

 

 

As the Conservative Treehouse speculates...

Why would Judge Merchan want to draw public attention to this?

Either something bigger is being diluted by this story, or perhaps Merchan is using it as a provocation to get Trump to talk about the jury and violate his gag order ahead of sentencing.

Or, perhaps Merchan is looking to create a mistrial to exit the case, or do it over again and extend the gag order.   Also, why not include the entire quote from the Facebook Page:

Not sure what’s going on, but something.  Something….

.

.

Suspicious Cat remains, well, suspicious.

Needless to say, 'mistrial' is trending on X right now.

M I S T R I A L
I
S
T
R
I
A
L

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) June 7, 2024

 https://www.zerohedge.com/political/mistrial-trump-hush-money-judge-suggests-juror-may-have-had-predetermined-guilty-verdict

“What’s Wrong With You?”

 Yesterday’s reckoning drew a heaping mail.

We reckoned that the United States contributed less to World War II victory than the Russian contribution.

Thus we have offended the national pieties.

We may as well have denounced the institution of motherhood, pies with apples in them and the Declaration of Independence.

Reader K.K deals with us this way:

What a lousy thing to write on D-Day. Any other day, your theory might be something someone might want to read… maybe, but not today. What’s wrong with you! Miserable.

What is wrong with us? Much… indisputably.

Yet we cling to our central claim that the United States was not the primary victor over the German devils in the Second World War.

The Soviet Union was.

The United States performed a substantial role, beyond question. Yet it was not the central role.

We remind you that the Russians inflicted some 80% of all Kraut casualties.

Yet a nation requires its myths.

Washington could not say a fib, the Civil War was a crusade against slavery, the Statue of Liberty is a totem to immigration.

To these we must add the myth that the United States chiefly triumphed over the hated and hideous Hun.

And that its central purpose was to defend democracy.

Thus yesterday Hillary Clinton X-ed, tweeted, what have you:

Eighty years ago today, thousands of brave Americans fought to protect democracy on the shores of Normandy.

Did a single marauder leap from a landing craft that day with democracy on his mind?

Did a single paratrooper yell “Democracy!” when humping out the plane? Or did he shout “Geronimo!”

We hazard the bulking majority of those “brave Americans” who “fought to protect democracy on the shores of Normandy” represented the very deplorables who Ms. Clinton assailed in 2016.

They were overwhelmingly Caucasian, rural and in many instances Southern.

They likely held racial beliefs that were not… progressive.

Only in the 1960s was Jim Crow chased into exile.

And the United States Army of the Second World War was a segregated institution.

Many of these democracy zealots were likewise against homosexuality, crossdressing and transgenderism — if they were even aware of it.

Toxic masculinity was amok.

“Here’s What We’re Fighting For,” read a September 1944 Stars and Stripes headline above a photo of excited French women.

The caption read: “The French are nuts about the Yanks.”

And not all American personnel were… gentlemanly.

“Our men had to disguise themselves under the Germans,” said a Normandy resident.

“But when the Americans came, we had to hide the women.”

A Le Havre cafe proprietor claimed:

We expected friends who would not make us ashamed of our defeat. Instead, there came incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors.

One resident of that village dispatched a sharp note to its mayor. It read that he and his fellow residents were:

Attacked, robbed, run over both on the street and in our houses. This is a regime of terror, imposed by bandits in uniform.

The researches of historian Mary Louise Roberts reveal that the sexual incentive was promoted “to motivate American soldiers.”

More from whom:

Sex, and I mean prostitution and rape, was a way for Americans to show domination over France, dominating French men, as they had been unable to protect their country and their women from the Germans. 

Ms. Roberts reports that soldiers of the United States Army potentially executed thousands of rapes in France.

One hundred fifty-two Americans faced military trial for rape, 1944–45. Twenty-nine were sentenced to the gallows.

This Roberts gentlelady even authored a book bearing the title What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France.

About which:

People were angry at my book because they didn’t want to lose this ideal of the good war, of the good GI. Even if it means we have to keep on lying.

We do not intend to assault the reputation of the United States Army. We believe most of its ranks hung their nation’s altar in glory and honor.

And boys — as is said — will be boys.

Only a limited minority of miscreants did the misdeeds.

Yet in the overall, Ms. Clinton would have likely grimaced and bristled in the presence of America’s Normandy invaders.

She would have labeled many deplorables.

Here is a parallel World War II myth: The Greatest Generation volunteered to fight.

Many have seen the photographs of recruitment queues stretching around street corners following the Japanese sucker punch of Dec. 7, 1941.

They existed. Yet 66% of World War II American service personnel were conscripts.

The Vietnam War — in contrast to World War II — is at times referred to as a “conscript war.”

American youths were plucked wholesale from the farms and factories and packed off… reluctantly… to the jungles.

Yet a mere 25% of Vietnam War wagers were conscripts; 75% raised their hand, stepped forth and volunteered to go.

Again: Uncle Samuel tapped 66% of Second World War personnel upon the shoulder. Only 34% went willingly.

Again: We do not intend to stomp upon the heroism, honor and sacrifices the vast majority of these men put forth.

They are worthy of hosannas.

We merely seek to confront sacrosanct myths, to unhorse pieties — even if offensive to some.

Brian Maher is the Daily Reckoning's Managing Editor. Before signing on to Agora Financial, he was an independent researcher and writer who covered economics, politics and international affairs. His work has appeared in the Asia Times and other news outlets around the world. He holds a Master’s degree in Defense & Strategic Studies.

https://dailyreckoning.com/whats-wrong-with-you/

Does Biden Reject Israel's Right to Self-Defense?

 The most basic function of all governments is to provide for the collective defense of the governed. The most basic foundation of sovereignty is a state’s right to defend its country from aggression. Take away a state’s right to self-defense, and you’ve effectively transformed it into a non-sovereign state.

Six Biden administration actions and policies subvert Israel’s right to self-defense. Whether analysed separately or all together, they make it difficult to avoid the conclusion that the administration’s ultimate end is to undermine to the point of ending Israel’s right to self-defense, and so end Israel’s sovereignty, for all intents and purposes.

The six policies the administration is undertaking relate to the battle in Rafah, Gaza’s border town with Egypt; its posture vis-à-vis the International Criminal Court amidst the ICC’s stated intention of issuing arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders on false war crimes charges; the administration’s effort to coerce Israel into accepting Palestinian Authority control over post-war Gaza as a stepping stone towards the swift establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza, Judea and Samaria, and parts of Jerusalem; the administration’s policies in relation to Saudi-Israeli normalization; and finally, the administration’s determination to block Israel from taking any effective action to prevent Iran from building a nuclear arsenal.

1. Rafah

Last week, the IDF carried out an airstrike targeting two senior Hamas terrorists in Rafah. Some 45 people Hamas asserts were civilians were also killed in the bombing. Immediately after the incident, the administration harshly criticized Israel for the operation. Vice President Kamala Harris said “the word tragic doesn’t even begin to describe” the loss of human life in the incident. Other senior officials voiced similar revulsion at Israel’s alleged killing of innocent civilians as a result of its killing of two senior terrorists. The U.S. State Department announced it would investigate the incident, which it referred to as “heartbreaking.”

Within moments of the airstrike, IDF forces on the ground were reporting that the fire that caused the deaths of the additional Palestinians was sparked by a secondary explosion. Early assessments were that the explosion was caused by Hamas rockets hidden adjacent to the encampment.

It was also clear, immediately after the bombing, that the operation was not carried out in a humanitarian safe zone, as Hamas alleged. At Israel’s urging, in recent weeks nearly a million residents of Rafah fled to the zones, which the IDF set up to protect them from the crossfire of battle. The bombing was carried out in the war zone, where civilians had already left.

It was also known immediately after the incident that the Air Force used the smallest ordnance permitted to limit to the greatest degree the possibility of the attack causing additional deaths beyond the two terror commanders Israel targeted.

In the two days after the incident, the IDF released intercepted phone conversations between people on the ground who stated outright that the fire in the tents that caused the additional deaths was the result of a secondary explosion of Hamas munitions. Israel played no role in the carnage. Hamas was entirely responsible for everything that had happened.

Given the fact that Israel’s careful prosecution of the war has led to the smallest ratio of civilians to militants killed in the history of modern war, its ally, the United States, could have been expected to give it the benefit of the doubt and not rush to pile on international condemnations of the Jewish state based entirely on Hamas footage and propaganda.

But the fact is that for months, Washington did everything possible to block Israel from carrying out its vital operation in Rafah, knowing all along that Israel cannot defeat Hamas if it leaves the international border under Hamas’s control. The administration’s latest effort to delegitimize Israel’s operation in Rafah by embracing Hamas’s quickly discredited rendition of events follows the administration’s now-established pattern of undermining the operation.

The administration’s tireless efforts to first block Israel from seizing control over Rafah and then embrace Hamas’s lies to criminalize the Jewish state signal that its opposition is not about humanitarian concerns.

If the United States successfully coerces Israel to abstain from controlling Rafah, including the border zone, then Hamas will survive. And if Hamas stays in power, Israel will lose the war. So by undermining Israel’s operation in Rafah, the administration is protecting Hamas from destruction while effectively criminalizing Israel’s war to protect itself from further aggression against Hamas.

2. International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court has been trying to build cases criminalizing Israel and denying it the right to self-defense for at least a decade. Its pursuit of criminal charges have taken many forms and moved in many directions. It is notable, therefore, that when ICC prosecutor Karim Khan began indicating his intention to issue arrest warrants against Israel’s leaders a month ago, his claims ignored years’ long ICC investigations of Israel, and instead, simply parroted the administration’s rhetorical assaults on Israel. For months, the administration has been accusing Israel of denying sufficient “humanitarian aid” to the Palestinians, causing them to live in conditions of acute food insecurity that at a minimum border on starvation. The administration has also consistently accused Israel of killing “too many” civilians.

The first allegation was never true. The second is entirely subjective, and given that the civilian-to-terrorist death ratio in Gaza of 1.3:1 is far lower than any similar ratio in the history of modern warfare, the U.S. designation is absurd

The U.S. allegation relating to humanitarian aid formed the basis of the administration’s consistent demand that Israel permit ever-increasing quantities of food, water and medicine into Gaza. That demand, which Israel acceded to, guaranteed Hamas constant resupply. Since Hamas remains the most powerful Palestinian force on the ground, it has been able to maintain total control over the aid and used that to maintain its power over the population. In other words, the U.S. demand that Israel provide all but limitless quantities of goods to enter Gaza protected Hamas and its regime from destruction.

Khan announced on May 20 that he intends to charge Israel’s leaders with war crimes for starving Gazans by preventing sufficient humanitarian aid from entering and for “killing civilians.” It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that in determining what to charge Israel with, the ICC opted to align itself with the administration.

His decision seems to have paid off. On Wednesday, Israel was blindsided when contrary to explicit messaging from U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken in testimony before the Senate on May 21, National Security Council communications advisor John Kirby announced on Wednesday that the administration opposes the bill now moving through Congress to sanction ICC personnel for advancing an unlawful and scurrilous prosecution of Israeli leaders.

If the ICC’s bid to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for the crime of carrying out a just, lawful war for Israel’s survival is successful, the ICC will deny Israel’s right to self-defense and so delegitimize its very existence as a sovereign state. By refusing to support sanctions on the ICC for its unlawful, discriminatory action against Israel, the administration is signaling that it supports the ICC’s goal.

3. Gaza Pier

Two months after President Joe Biden promised to build a temporary pier in Gaza to massively expand the amount of humanitarian aid going to the local population, the structure was declared operational. In mid-May, the first convoy of aid drove off the causeway, after vessels along the pier fitted them with pallets of aid. Those pallets were seized and plundered by a mob shortly after they left the pier. On May 26, the pier disintegrated as its components fell apart and began sinking or floating to the shore. Vessels deployed to repair it were similarly marooned on the Israeli coast. And now the entire project is under repair in Ashdod.

As former U.S. naval intelligence analyst J.E. Dyer explained, the pier never was supposed to have the capacity to supply more than a fraction of the humanitarian aid the U.S. insists that Gaza requires. Given this state of affairs, it becomes difficult to avoid the conclusion that the pier project was never about providing food, water and medicine to a suffering population in a war zone. Dyer argues convincingly that the purpose of the pier is strategic, rather than tactical. By deploying a pier to the coast, the United States directly undermines Israel’s ability to operate independently in Gaza generally and to maintain its maritime blockade of Gaza specifically. As Dyer notes, Israel first imposed a maritime blockade of Gaza following its first military exchange with the Hamas-controlled territory in 2009. The blockade is lawful—indeed required—under international law since Hamas is controlled by a terrorist organization.

The move to impose the pier on Israel is being conducted to advance the Biden administration’s goal of “protecting” the Palestinians from Israel rather than helping America’s ally achieve its goal of eliminating Hamas as a military and political entity in Gaza. Consequently, imposing the pier on Israel is a hostile action. Kirby insisted on Wednesday that the administration would not allow the damage that the pier incurred in its first week of operation—or its steep cost of $320 million before it disintegrated—to stop the administration from maintaining the project.

4. Palestinian statehood

In a press appearance on Wednesday, Blinken addressed Israel’s unwillingness to agree to the administration’s plan for the “day after” the war in Gaza. Since the outset of the war, Biden and Blinken have sought to coerce Netanyahu to accept their plan to transfer control over Gaza to the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu rejected the plan insisting that Israel will not replace “Hamastan” with “Fatahstan.”

As Netanyahu’s stark description of the U.S. effort indicated, the transfer of responsibility over Gaza to the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority involves transferring responsibility over the area to a terrorist organization that shares Hamas’s goal of annihilating Israel and has, in fact, been a full and steady partner in Hamas’s war effort. True, the administration operates under the delusion that Fatah terrorists in the P.A. are better than Hamas terrorists, but Israel does not share (nor can it afford to) in the Americans’ delusions.

Moreover, since Hamas is more powerful than Fatah, any transfer of power to Fatah will involve transferring power to Hamas. Indeed, P.A. leaders themselves have made this clear repeatedly by emphasizing their goal of integrating Hamas.

Finally, if Israel were to accept the U.S. plan, then the restoration of Palestinian rule in Gaza after Oct. 7 would be universally viewed as a massive victory for jihad. It would tell everyone in the Muslim world and beyond that while talking with Israel will get them nowhere, committing a one-day Holocaust will result in a U.S.-backed strategic victory over the Jews and begin the countdown for the ultimate destruction of Israel.

5. Normalized relations with Saudi Arabia

The 2020 Abraham Accords, which former President Donald Trump ushered in with Netanyahu and the leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan marked a historic and strategic shift in the Arab-Israel conflict. For more than a generation, peace between Israel and the Arab world was blocked by the Palestinian veto. It dictated that no Arab state would be allowed to have normal, peaceful relations with the Jewish state as long as the Palestinians refused to first make peace with Israel. The Abraham Accords canceled the Palestinian veto, and permitted Israel and the participating Arab states to pursue their joint interests as regional partners and neighbors while leaving the door open for the Palestinians to join them whenever they are ready.

Since entering office, the Biden administration pursued a policy of restoring the Palestinian veto. Through a series of bilateral talks with Abraham Accords partners and through U.S.-sponsored summits, Blinken worked assiduously to place the Palestinians at the center of every meeting agenda and transform the accords from a regional cooperation framework into a means to pressure Israel to make concessions to Palestinian terrorists or risk undermining its relations with its Arab partners.

In the months preceding Hamas’s invasion and slaughter on Oct. 7, the State Department made clear that Israel’s goal of normalizing its relations with Saudi Arabia would be contingent on Israel agreeing to a clear path towards Palestinian statehood. This has remained the U.S. position since then.

Post-Oct. 7, the vast majority of Israelis recognize the implications of Palestinian statehood for Israel’s survival, and as a result, some 90% of Israeli Jews oppose Palestinian statehood. All the same, the administration is insisting that normalization with Saudi Arabia would be the consolation prize for submitting to the United States, enabling Hamas to survive and paving the way for a Palestinian state. Aside from being a non-starter for Israel and far from advancing the cause of peace, the American plan for Israeli-Saudi normalization would destroy peace. The U.S. position implies that the only way for Israel to achieve peace with its neighbors is to lose the war. But if Israel loses the war to Hamas, no Arab state, including those who already have peace agreements with Israel, will wish to accept Israel as a permanent entity of the region. The Abraham Accords, together with the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, would be rendered dead-letter deals. Without a right to defend itself—and in this case, that means defeating Hamas—Israel is of no value to its regional neighbors.

6. Iran

Seemingly on a daily basis, Iranian officials threaten to attack Israel with nuclear weapons. This week, former head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, parliament member Fereydoun Abbasi said, “We have the technology to produce atomic bombs and the ability to launch satellites. If the enemy threatens, we will fight.”

This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran’s supply of enriched uranium is 30 times greater than the amount agreed upon in the 2015 nuclear deal the United States and its allies concluded with Iran.

Last month, IAEA director Rafael Grossi warned that Iran had enough highly enriched uranium for “several” nuclear bombs.

Although officially, the Biden administration is committed to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, it has done everything in its power to remove obstacles from Tehran’s path. It has provided Iran with the financial means to advance its bomb program by not enforcing U.S. sanctions against Iranian oil and gas exports; by unfreezing billions in Iranian assets; and by paying Iran billions more to secure the freedom of American hostages.

This week The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration is pressuring its allies at the IAEA not to censure Iran for its non-compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the upcoming Board of Governors meeting.

As for Israel, the administration tried to force Israel not to respond to Iran’s massive missile and drone strike against Israel on the night of April 13-14. When Israel finally responded, due to massive U.S. pressure, it did nothing more than signal its capabilities. Iran incurred no damage to its nuclear, missile or regime installations in retribution for its unprovoked, unprecedented and massive attack on Israel.

In interfering and seeking to block altogether Israel’s retaliation for the Iranian strike, the administration used its position as Jerusalem’s ostensible ally to subvert its strategic independence and ability to defend itself effectively against Iranian aggression. In so doing, the United States empowered Iran against Israel and emboldened it to move forward with its nuclear-weapons program, which the U.S. is using its diplomatic power to protect at the IAEA.

All of the administration’s actions against Israel in Gaza—throughout the region and in relation to Iran—undermine and subvert Israel’s sovereign right to self-defense. When seen together, the conclusion that this is the Biden administration’s actual goal becomes impossible to avoid.

Caroline Glick is Senior Contributing Editor at JNS, host of the Caroline Glick Show and Newsweek columnist.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/06/06/does_biden_reject_israels_right_to_self-defense_151066.html