Since Oct. 7, 2023, external humanitarian aid has primarily had to enter the Gaza Strip via the land crossing at Rafah, which is run by Egypt. 

Gen. Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi, the ruler of Egypt for the past decade, is as committed as Israel to the goal of keeping arms out of the hands of terrorists, so Israel trusts his government in Egypt to vet these shipments and ensure that armaments aren’t smuggled in among the convoys of food and beverages that cross every day.

Neither Israel nor Egypt have put a limit on the number of trucks that can enter at Rafah, and the Gaza Strip is not a particularly big place – it’s only about twice the size of Washington D.C., in fact.  One entrance with unlimited trucks is quite sufficient to bring in aid for such a small area.

But ever since Hamas’s horrific attacks on Israel on October 7 that started this long-needed police action, the global anti-Israel lobby has declared that they need another way to bring in humanitarian aid – one outside Egypt.  They need a seaport, they tell us, to bring in aid directly from the Mediterranean.

Why?

The answer is obvious.  The terrorists of Hamas and their fellow travelers have allies in Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, Iran, and the United Nations.  Anyone else who might ship cargo to Gaza would – intentionally – have weaker security checkpoints than Egypt has.  

There’s a reason, after all, why Israel hasn’t been allowing relief vessels to serve Gaza, and it dates back to long before October 7.  Israel has frequently caught weapons caches being smuggled into Gaza by sea in the past – always under the guise of humanitarian aid.

This isn’t Israel being mean or suspicious; this is Israel learning from experience, and acknowledging reality.

If the West wants to get food, medicine, and beverages into Gaza, all they have to do is send it to Rafah, and Egypt will make sure it gets there.

But Hamas doesn’t want Western food, medicine and beverages.  Hamas wants weapons.

Don’t believe me?  Read the news reports.  The Biden-Harris regime staged air drops of food and beverages the week of the State of the Union address, and what happened? Some of the food was destroyed because these allegedly starving refugees complained that the charity drops weren’t halal, and whatever Hamas could get its collective hands on, they sold on the black market – as they have done before.

This example, in fact, proves what we have been saying about Hamas and the people of Gaza for decades: these people are impoverished because it serves their masters’ purpose to have them starve.

All the heirs of the PLO – from Hamas to Fatah and all the also-rans too – have a gravy train in place.  As long as they can make the world feel sorry for the denizens of the Gaza Strip - and Judea and Samaria too - they can continue to get sympathy, press, and cash.

The palatial estates in Qatar and Switzerland in which the leaders of these organizations reside as absentee landlords don’t come cheap. They need donations, and the old story that “Israel is starving the poor refugees” never gets old.

The motives of Hamas are obvious, the security and effectiveness of the Egyptian checkpoint are plain; the foolishness of air-drops is practically indisputed.

So, the question remains: Why does the Biden-Harris regime support the terrorists further, by offering to use U.S. troop ships, U.S. engineers, and U.S. funds to break the siege and supply the terrorists via a temporary pier off the Mediterranean shore?

There can only be one reason. The Biden-Harris regime wants to strengthen Hamas, to even the playing field so that Hamas survives this period, strong enough to remain a permanent threat to Israel. And since Israel is seeing great success in its effort to neutralize Hamas, the Biden-Harris regime is getting desperate, and is willing to take an active role in propping up Hamas, in spite of everything.

So much for the special friendship between Israel and the United States that has endured for over half a century. So much for the American people’s great respect for the one honest republic in the Middle East, the only country in the region in which Jews, Christians and Arabs alike can vote in regular elections and even hold elective office themselves.  Despite all the many reasons why the United States should support Israel, the Biden-Harris regime is on the other side.

Some think it’s because of the so-called Palestinian demonstrations that sprang up after the October 7 attacks.

Some think it’s because of the hundreds of college committees that have been promoting their vile “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” programs, poisoning the minds of college students for years.

Some think it’s because 2024 Democrat campaigns are afraid they’ll lose the votes of the militant, anti-Israel racists of large Arab communities like Dearborn, Michigan and St. Paul, Minnesota.

Some think it’s because the U.N. favors the temporary port, and this regime always does what the U.N. wants, no matter how offensive.

However … perhaps we shouldn’t dismiss Occam’s Razor.

The minds of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Antony Blinken are hardly the diabolical deep thinkers of a spy novel or Hollywood movie.  Their motives are as plain as day on every other issue; why not this one?

Perhaps it’s time to consider the argument that the simplest answer might indeed be the correct one. 

Maybe the Biden-Harris regime is taking measures to support Hamas – the remote rulers of an impoverished refugee camp, long kept in suffering for the power and money it provides their leaders – because there’s just something about Hamas that the Biden-Harris crowd just happens to like.

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer and speaker. A one-time Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. Read his book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II, and the recently released Volume Three.

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