As Israel prepared its ground invasion of Lebanon to dismantle the terrorist group Hezbollah, the Biden-Harris administration leaked the p...
As Israel prepared its ground invasion of Lebanon to dismantle the terrorist group Hezbollah, the Biden-Harris administration leaked the plans to the press, catalyzing harsh reaction on social media.
The Washington Post broke the news on Monday, as The Times of Israel noted. The Post reported:
Israel is planning a limited ground operation in Lebanon that could start imminently, Israel has told Washington, a U.S. official said. Israel’s planned campaign would be smaller than its last war against Hezbollah in 2006 and would focus on clearing out militant infrastructure along the border to remove the threat to Israeli border communities, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks between the two governments. On Monday, Israeli forces carried out limited raids in Lebanon, according to an Israeli familiar with the operation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
Social media blasted the Biden-Harris administration:
The Biden-Harris administration’s undermining of Israel has taken numerous forms over the years; it recently joined the United Nations to invoke immunity for UNRWA and its employees who aided and abetted Hamas in its murderous massacre of more than 1220 people in Israel last October 7. In addition, the Biden-Harris administration undermined the Israeli war effort by refusing to notify Congress about military aid intended for Israel, thus blocking the delivery of the aid, and warned Israel not to enter Rafah, Hamas’ last stronghold, as Kamala Harris stated, “It would be a mistake to move into Rafah with any type of military operation.”
The Biden-Harris administration has leaked sensitive information about Israel before, as the Obama-Biden administration did before that.
In April 2021, the Biden administration leaked to The New York Times that Israel had attacked Iran’s ship Saviz in the Red Sea.
Amichai Stein of the Israel Public Broadcasting Corporation Kann tweeted, “US official tells NYT: Israel informed the US it attacked Iran’s ship Saviz in the Red Sea in ‘retaliation for earlier strikes on Israeli vessels’ and added: ‘the ship was damaged under the waterline.’”
Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren said in 2010, while Biden was vice president under Obama, “Israel’s ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975 … a crisis of historic proportions.” In October 2012, Danny Danon, chairman of Likud’s international outreach branch, said that the Obama administration’s policies had been “catastrophic.”
In 2020, John Perazzo delineated how often the Obama-Biden administration had leaked information about Israel between 2010 and 2015. In 2010, the Obama-Biden administration, eager to protect Iran, leaked information about a secret deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia in which the Saudis agreed to let Israel use their airspace in the event of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. On March 22, 2012, the Obama-Biden administration leaked to The New York Times the results of a classified war game. Institute for National Security Studies analyst Yoel Guzansky said of the leak, “It seems like a big campaign to prevent Israel from attacking. I think the [Obama-Biden] administration is really worried Jerusalem will attack and attack soon. They’re trying hard to prevent it in so many ways.”
Israel defense commentator Ron Ben-Yishai wrote in May 2012 that the leaks would “make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] to carry out a strike, and what’s even graver, [would] erode the IDF’s capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties.”
In April 2012, The New Yorker reported that the Obama-Biden administration leaked information that the Israeli Mossad was funding and training the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK). Perazzo noted, “This revelation was intended to portray Israel as being unwilling to negotiate in good faith with the government in Tehran, and to thereby undermine any moral authority that Israel might claim in the event of a future military strike against Iran.”
Perazzo continued: “In early May 2013, two Obama-Biden administration officials leaked classified information to the media indicating that Israel was behind a May 3 airstrike against a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles at the airport in Damascus, Syria. Israeli security analysts said that the leak could not only endanger any Israeli agents who were still on the ground in Syria, but could also increase the likelihood that Syrian President Bashar Assad would retaliate against the Jewish state. Again, the purpose of the leak was to paint Israel as an unnecessarily aggressive, bellicose nation.”
In November 2013, an Obama-Biden administration official leaked to CNN that a Syrian base in Latakia, which held Russian-made mobile missile systems that could have been given to the terrorist group Hezbollah had been attacked by Israel warplanes. Perazzo pointed out, “Israeli officials called the leak ‘scandalous’ and ‘unthinkable.’”
In January 2015, the Obama-Biden administration leaked information alleging that an anonymous Mossad official had opposed sanctions on Iran. Within hours, the official, Mossad’s Tamir Pardo, responded, “Contrary to what has been reported, the head of the Mossad did not say that he opposes imposing additional sanctions on Iran…. Regarding the reported reference to ‘throwing a grenade,’ the head of the Mossad did not use this expression regarding the imposition of sanctions, which he believes to be the sticks necessary for reaching a good deal with Iran. He used this expression as a metaphor to describe the possibility of creating a temporary crisis in the negotiations, at the end of which talks would resume under improved conditions.”
In 1982, Biden, then a senator, banged the desk in front of him with his fist at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting to warn Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to stop establishing new Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. Begin famously responded:
Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid. …
This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the U.S. lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats. Take note: we do not want a single soldier of yours to die for us.
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