Dear Sir,

So those horrible, apartheid-stained Israelis made life miserable for the aggrieved Palestinians and it is entirely understandable that the oppressed have risen up against their oppressors. If you don’t agree with this interpretation of recent events, you are obviously an unrepentant patriarchy-supporting, colonising White supremacist.

The truth isn’t quite so unidimensional. Yes, the Israelis have responded to Hamas atrocities of October 7 with a devastating war against Hamas, but I have yet to see one plausible suggestion as to how the Israelis would be able to destroy Hamas without causing a great deal of harm to Gazans, who, lest we forget, chose Hamas to be their leaders/spokesmen, cheered at the events of October 7 and continue to support and defend Hamas.

Given, therefore, that Israel has not occupied Gaza for almost 20 years, and given that Israel has made enormous and continuous efforts to make peace with its neighbours, why then is the area erupting in paroxysms of violence not seen in decades?

The answer is glaringly transparent to anyone who is not a Democratic Party apologist: President Joe Biden’s incoherence and weakness.

Biden managed to create a crisis on America’s southern border through his politically motivated reversal of Donald Trump’s very effective border controls and by signalling his willingness to welcome whoever wished to enter the United States. Next, he made it clear to Russia and China that he would not respond in any meaningful way to their threats against their neighbours.

In the Middle East, Biden decided that reverting to Barack Obama’s ill-advised and terrorist-rewarding policies is the best path forward.

Instead of continuing Donald Trump’s paradigm-shifting containment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions and refusing to reward Palestinian leadership for their ongoing corruption and incitement, Biden believed that giving truckloads of money to Iran and the Palestinians was somehow going to bring about the Middle East peace that has eluded all his predecessors.

Oh, wait.

There was a growing rapprochement between Israel and many of her Arab neighbours, and Iran’s economy was essentially crippled by Trump’s policies, so maybe peace wasn’t eluding that particular predecessor? Trump may have had his character flaws, but he clearly understood that the malevolent forces in the Middle East would never alter their behaviour unless they were confronted by American strength and determination — attributes that are totally absent in Biden.

Palestinian leadership may be otherworldly corrupt, but they are not stupid. They witnessed Biden’s weakness on numerous foreign policy fronts and they saw their coffers being replenished by the US despite any evidence of their willingness to negotiate with Israel, so they concluded — not without justification — that they could ratchet up the violence and extract even more concessions from the US, not to mention extort more millions to buy Paris apartments.

With Biden in charge, they’re probably not wrong. The shame is that people on both sides are dying for the failures of American foreign policy and the unhelpful actions and signals of the Biden Administration.

HENRY ROTH

Montreal, Canada