Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt and former CIA ops officer Bryan Dean Wright told Newsmax Wednesday that the relationship between the United States and Israel is "getting worse, not better" as the Jewish state continues its ground offensive against Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
"I think it's started out bad and it's getting to worse," Holt said during an appearance on Newsmax's "American Agenda." "In name, D.C., the [Biden] administration, starts every press conference with 'We stand by Israel and its right to defend itself,' and then everything that flows after that is some sort of lambasting critique of what they're doing and accusing them of things they haven't done. And it's getting worse, not better. The Israelis have been very clear about this: They're going to do what they have to do.
"If you look at these conditions and critique, now transpose that over the Ukrainian equation and words like 'whatever it takes,' 'you'll get whatever you need,' and 'we stand with you,' it's remarkable because Israel is our No. 1 ally in the region and undermining them verbally hurts," he continued.
"It hurts what they're trying to accomplish. It makes our soldiers and forces in the region actually more imperiled because we all know where the enemy is. The enemy is not Hamas. The enemy is called Iran, and they are the progenitors of all of this. We just keep flowing money to them and keep ignoring that that's where this is coming from."
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden said Israel is beginning to lose support from the international community over its widespread bombing of Gaza, which has resulted in thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths.
"They're starting to lose that support," Biden said during a campaign fundraising event. The president also reportedly said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to change his hard-line government.
Wright followed up on Holt's comments by saying that "the fundamental problem isn't Israel; it's that Hamas attacked the Israeli state" and "killed over 1,000 people." Intel from Israeli drone operators indicates that Hamas terrorists are "grabbing their own people, children, using them physically as human shields as they walk around with their AK-47s," he said.
"So what we have in this Gaza Strip today and other places throughout the Middle East are Islamic radicals who are using some of the most horrific tactics against their own people, against other civilians in the region. So I don't think that the White House is very smart to start taking on the Israelis and using increasing terrible rhetoric to lambaste them in the middle of a profound, profound struggle that the Israeli people are facing," he said.
"Their struggle, in that sense, should be ours. And this is not the time to start basically giving aid and comfort to those who, frankly, are on the pro-Hamas side of this country and his [Biden's] own political party."
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Nicole Wells ✉
Nicole Wells, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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