The United States lacks a concrete stance of Israel’s security, and this weakens U.S foreign policy, according to panelists on FOX News’ “The Five” on Wednesday.
In the wake of Hamas operative Abu Zhuhiri’s announcement that “All Israelis have now become legitimate targets,” the radical Islamic group has begun targeting innocent Israeli civilians and fired rockets over an Israeli wedding Wednesday night. Israeli’s missile defense system has held up so far, keeping the rockets from causing any damage.
But now that all Israelis are “legitimate targets for terror,” nowhere is safe. Despite all this, the United States continues to send over half a million dollars in aid to the Palestinians.
“It’s a big problem. That’s money going 100% in the wrong direction. Evidence, the proof is there,” Kimberly Guilfoyle said. “I’ll tell you what it seems they are not too worried about Israel or Israel’s allies the United States. We’ve not been strong enough supporters, the relationship between the United States and Israel; I think it remains a challenging one. I think that’s not lost on the enemies of both of our countries.”
When asked iff there should be any drawback on U.S. aid to the Palestinians, Bob Beckel responded that the aid to Palestine originally came at the request of the Israeli government, and that Palestinians need help offsetting the cost that Israel has to maintain the Gaza strip.
The United States currently gives over half a billion dollars in aid to Palestine annually.
The FOX commentators began debating the cause of the violence in the Holy Land.
“I think that’s not fair to Israel. Israel did not start, Hamas escalated,” Dana Perino escalated. She also stated that even though Israel did in fact bomb the Gaza Strip first, they did not do it unprovoked.
Perino countered that the defense shown by the second Bush administration — and expanded by the Obama administration — is working. But, unlike Bush, who was very pro-Israel, it is unclear what Obama will do next in the Middle East.
“You sense a theme. Look at the world’s hot spots, Ukraine, if you look at Israel if you look at Iraq, they all have a border conflict,” Greg Gutfeld said. “If you look at the past six years the Obama administration, we’re becoming more like the world, and less than us.”
Bret Baier stated that the Obama administration is currently telling Israel to back off. Guilfoyle countered that this is a problem because the administration is sending a mixed message on the type of restraint that Israel should demonstrate, whereas the Palestinian authority has shown “no restraint” thus far.
Perino agreed that the message from the United States to Israel doesn’t show enough restraint, but also, the message isn’t strong enough, and that the United States needs to step up in the Middle East, as well as in their foreign policy in general. Since 1949, the United States has attempted, but failed, to come up with a solution for peace in Israel.
“The world is taking notice, that we’ve got so many spinning plates in America. You have to keep spinning them faster or else one is going to break,” Perino said.