In his Tuesday afternoon address, President Biden made it clear the U.S. stands with Israel and condemns the Palestinian terror group Hamas. “In this moment, we must be crystal clear: We stand with Israel,” he said.
Biden went on to describe the brutal terrorist acts, such as murdering children and grandmothers, and called them “abhorrent” acts that violate human morality.
“Like every nation in the world, Israel has the right to respond – indeed has a duty to respond – to these vicious attacks,” Biden also said.
Bob Maginnis, who studies national security at the Family Research Council, says Biden is rarely convincing when he speaks and was not convincing in the important Tuesday speech.
“The words, of course, are always what the speechwriter wants him to say and what the State Department wants to send as a message,” Maginnis tells AFN. “So I understand the message. It's the follow-through which is always the problem."
National security expert Kirk Lippold, a former U.S. Navy commander, noticed what was not mentioned in Biden’s speech. There was no mention of Iran, which funds and trains Hamas, he points out, and hence there were no words from a U.S. president warning Iran’s leaders the U.S. holds them responsible for the murderous attack.
AFN reviewed the White House transcript and found no mention of Iran.
"I feel like I'm having a flashback to the 1990s,” Lippold tells AFN, “and the weakness of the Clinton administration is now being paralleled with the Biden administration.”
In the speech, Biden did mention American citizens were killed and kidnapped by Hamas, Lippold explains. Iran is ultimately responsible for Hamas killing and holding American hostages, he says, which makes no mention of Iran in the speech even worse.
