Joe Biden is leaving for Saudi Arabia. He's going there, cap in hand, to beg for more oil production -- so that he doesn't have to increase production in the U.S., because somehow that means Democrats can still pretend to be green.
He's also going after ripping the Saudi regime for its human rights abuses. No doubt Saudi Arabia is one of the worst abusers in the world, but Democrats didn't care until the Saudis were seen to be working with Trump on policy.
Biden's old boss, President Barack Obama, even bowed before the Saudi king on his first visit in 2009, part of Obama's early attempt to deal with terror by appeasing Sunni fundamentalists (he later tried Shia fundamentalists in Iran).
Jake Sullivan, the Russia hoaxer who somehow found his way into Michael Flynn's old job after smearing Michael Flynn, tried to list what he claimed were Biden's many achievements in the region. It was all a blur; nothing was real.
Biden's only achievement in the Middle East is failing to fulfill his ill-advised promise to the Palestinians to open a consulate in Jerusalem -- which would have divided the city irreversibly -- and failing to restore the Iran nuclear deal.
Sadly, because Biden has wasted 18 months trying to appease the Iranians, the regime has bought time to produce more nuclear material -- and Sullivan was reduced to complaining about Iran supplying Russia with weaponized UAVs.
That was precisely what was wrong with Obama's Iran deal -- as Benjamin Netanyahu told Congress in 2015: it did not require Iran to stop supporting terror and rogue regimes. Biden is only reaping what he and Obama sowed.
The Abraham Accords -- a name the Biden administration is reluctant to use have not expanded since Biden took office, though Israel and its Arab neighbors have continued improving relations simply because it is in their mutual interest.
Biden hopes to secure a deal involving a couple of islands that Saudi Arabia once possessed, hoping that will entice the Saudis to join in normalizing ties with Israel. Good luck to him: he has absolutely no leverage to make demands.
The Afghanistan withdrawal was a disaster; Biden's decision to delist the Houthis as terrorists was a disaster; and the choice to restore hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Palestinians was also a disaster.
Sullivan tried to claim credit for ending last year's war between Israel and Hamas. That was was preceded by Biden's gifts to the Palestinians, and the administration began by condemning Israeli self-defense in Jerusalem.
There is nothing redeeming about Biden's Middle East policy except its failure to achieve its stated objectives, which have run up against the hard reality of Iranian intransigence, Palestinian malfeasance, and Israeli-Saudi detente.
This week’s portion launches the great story of Abraham, who is told to leave everything of his life behind — except his immediate family — and to leave for “the Land that I shall show you.”
There’s something interesting in the fact that Abraham is told to leave his father’s house, as if breaking away from his father’s life — but his father, in fact, began the journey, moving from Ur to Haran (in last week’s portion). His father set a positive example — why should Abraham leave him?
Some obvious answers suggest themselves — adulthood, needing to make one’s own choices, his father not going far enough, etc.
But I think there is another answer. Abraham (known for the moment as Abram) needs to establish his own household. This is not just about making one’s own choice, but really about choosing one’s own starting point. It’s starting over.
Sometimes we start over in fundamental ways even if much that surrounds us remains the same. Sometimes the journey we have to ...
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
