A Ted Cruz two-fer: Wrongly hits Biden on Israel, ignores Trump trashing Netanyahu | Opinion
Ted Cruz, like the overachieving student that he was, sometimes doesn’t know when to quit while he’s ahead.
The Texas senator blistered President Joe Biden’s response to the terrorist massacres in Israel. On X.com (formerly Twitter) and on his podcast, Verdict, Cruz whipped up his usual rhetorical stew. And he had plenty of good points.
But he couldn’t resist mischaracterizing something Biden said, or rather didn’t say. And when called on it, he doubled down.
Cruz contends that the president refused for days to say that “the U.S. stands with Israel.” On Oct. 7, hours after news of the attacks broke, the president said: “Let there be no mistake: The United States stands with the state of Israel.”
Called on it, Cruz pointed to several other statements. Biden also said: “I made clear to Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu that we stand ready to offer all appropriate means of support to the government and people of Israel.” Not good enough, Cruz contends — Israel deserves unqualified support.
The senator also noted that the State Department initially suggested that Israel show “restraint” in its response and that Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for work toward a cease-fire just as Israel was barely responding.
As so often happens with Cruz, his effectiveness was diminished by his stubbornness. The president said the very words he desired, and he should have acknowledged it.
If you want to hold Biden’s feet to the fire, there’s plenty to work with. Cruz is not wrong that the administration’s message has been muddled. It has cozied up to Iran despite blinding evidence that its rulers have no interest in peace or normal relations with the U.S. And given Biden’s overall foreign policy record, he doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt.
Biden and his surrogates have also been too hard on Israel, playing footsie with leftist criticisms that complicated internal political squabbles over the structure of Israel’s judiciary are authoritarian or anti-democratic. Biden, like President Barack Obama before him, clearly doesn’t like Netanyahu, and that creates reasonable suspicion about whether the administration will try to rein Israel in as it responds to hideous slaughter that is, by scale, 10 times worse than the Sept. 11 attacks.
Cruz explored all of this on his podcast, where he was more thorough and careful than his X postings. His instinct to hold Biden accountable is sound. But if he really wanted to go after a leader who betrayed Israel when it most needed support, he could have taken it to his frenemy Donald Trump.
The former president and likely repeat GOP nominee displayed many of his worst qualities when discussing the terror attacks Wednesday at a campaign rally. Trump blasted Netanyahu — with American hostages still missing and Israel turning simultaneously to the destruction of Hamas and the burying of more than a thousand innocents. He chose that moment to pick nits over what he sees as insufficient fealty from the prime minister when Trump took out Iranian terrormonger Qassim Suleimani.
“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down … that was a very terrible thing,” he said.
With Israel possibly facing a multifront war for its survival, Trump called the Hezbollah terrorists who have inflicted so much pain on Israel “very smart.”
How does that square with “I stand with Israel,” Senator Cruz? Because what it sounds like is: “I stand wherever someone will stroke my ego.”
The sheer narcissism and lack of taste from Trump are no longer surprising. But if we’re going to judge whether one says the right words at the right time, Biden passes, and Trump flunks.
Cruz gets a C. Had he just stuck to the facts, it would be a B. Actually calling out Trump would earn Cruz an A+, but apparently even this overachiever has limits in how far he’ll reach for a top grade.
This story was originally published October 14, 2023 at 6:28 AM with the headline "A Ted Cruz two-fer: Wrongly hits Biden on Israel, ignores Trump trashing Netanyahu | Opinion."
