By Mike Dodd, USMC (Ret.)
I was in Washington, D.C. last week. It was a routine trip to meet with policymakers on Capitol Hill and defense leaders at the Pentagon. I’m in our nations’ capitol regularly to have various meetings and discuss strategies on how to bring the most cutting-edge technologies to our warfighters.
But this visit felt different. There was a palpable intensity in the air. You could practically still smell the lingering smoldering fumes from a mob of thousands burning American flags at Columbus Circle. Others defaced a monument and the Freedom Bell at Union Station. Half a dozen violent protesters were arrested.
What would prompt such abhorrent disrespect to the United States, our flag, and our monuments? It was a visit from the leader of one of our greatest allies, Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was addressing a joint session of Congress—what will surely be memorialized as a historic speech.
“We meet today at a crossroads of history,” began Netanyahu. “This is not a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash between barbarism and civilization. It’s a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.”
Of course, Israel has been embroiled in a brutal war in the Gaza strip for months. The combat, a direct response to the October 7th attack from Hamas into Israeli territory. The terrorist group murdered more than 1200 innocent people, mostly Israeli civilians, but also individuals from 41 other countries. They decapitated men, raped women, and burned babies to death. The single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
“The State of Israel did exactly what you would expect any self-respecting state to do. They waged war. They fiercely waged war. They’ve asserted their rights. They protected their people. And they’ve done what is necessary to try to prevent these sorts of evil events from occurring again,” said Senator Todd Young, reacting to Netanyahu’s address.
I—like I’m sure many others—have been befuddled by the anti-Israel and pro-Hamas rallies in D.C. and those that have taken place around the country. Do these protesters really know what they’re protesting? Do they know that Iran is funding the terror organizations they are supporting? Proxies throughout the Middle East including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen—all of them are currently fighting Israel and all of them receive funding, munitions, and training directly from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Netanyahu described these protesters perfectly. “When the tyrants from Teheran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair are praising, promoting, and funding you, you have officially become Iran’s useful idiots.”
Let’s step back and look at this situation wholistically. There are several reasons why Israel and the United States have an inseparable bond: Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East, Israel is the birthplace of Christianity, and Israel has a strategic location along the Mediterranean at the gateway of the Middle East. Our ties are based on political culture, faith, and strategy. And I should really reverse that list, because the last reason, strategy, is the most critical right now. It’s widely known that Israeli and U.S. military and intelligence organizations have been in close collaboration for decades.
The war between Israel and Hamas is really a war between Israel and Iran, and by attacking Israel, Iran is ostensibly attacking the United States.
“The mobs in Teheran, chant ‘death to Israel’ before they chant ‘death to America’.” Said Netanyahu. “For Iran, Israel is first, America is next. So, when Israel fights Hamas, we’re really fighting Iran. When we fight Hezbollah, we’re fighting Iran. When we fight the Houthis, we’re fighting Iran. And when we fight Iran, we’re fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States of America.”
This is nothing new.
I recall vividly watching news reports about the 1979 storming of the U.S. embassy in Teheran where 53 American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days. And, as a 12-year-old, I’ll never forget the images of the bombed-out Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. The attack in 1983 claimed the lives of 220 Marines, 18 sailors and 3 soldiers. 58 French military were also killed in that suicide bombing. Iran’s proxies have bombed U.S. embassies in Africa. And most recently, in Iraq, Iran supplied ISIS with bombs and other weapons that maimed and killed thousands of American service members.
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