EDITORIAL: Blinken’s lectures at Israel are counterproductive

It’s becoming a broken record. The Biden administration pledges its support for Israel but then undercuts the Jewish state by publicly criticizing its war effort.

The attempt to remain atop the balance beam is no surprise. President Joe Biden is trying to placate the progressive radicals — some within the White House — who now dominate his party and have embraced Hamas terrorists. But the approach only gives comfort to Israel’s enemies.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken blamed Israel for civilian deaths and for blocking Palestinian self-governance, Bloomberg News reported.

“Israel must stop taking steps that undercut Palestinians’ ability to govern themselves effectively,” Mr. Blinken said. “Extremist settler violence carried out with impunity. Settlement expansion, demolition, evictions — all make it harder, not easier, for Israel to achieve lasting peace and security.” He added that Israel “must be a partner of the Palestinian leaders who are willing to lead their people (and) live side by side in peace.”

This makes for a wonderful sound bite. But it ignores reality. Where are the Palestinian leaders who are willing to “live side by side in peace”? Hamas has made clear that it wants to wipe Israel from the face of the Earth. It provoked this war with a barbaric Oct. 7 attack that killed more than 1,200 people and targeted women and children. It considers its own civilian deaths to be a boon to the cause. The group still holds innocent hostages that it seized as bargaining chips.

Meanwhile, is the Palestinian Authority, which many see as an option to run Gaza once the current fighting ends, any less of a threat to Israel? While some Palestinian leaders now recognize Israel, the PLO still denies its right to exist — a subtle but major distinction.

“Palestinian Arab leaders have consistently refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist. The question is, why?” Moshe Dann wrote in September for the Jerusalem Post. “They insist that all of what was ‘Palestine’ belongs to them and that Israel must be destroyed; it’s explicit in the PLO Covenant and the Hamas Charter.”

Mr. Blinken and Mr. Biden argue that a revamped Palestinian Authority can be defanged and trained to run Gaza. But will any of those new leaders publicly disavow using terror tactics against Israel? Will they vow to stop financing indiscriminate attacks against Israelis? Will they recognize the nation’s right to be? We’re waiting.

So far, Israeli officials have resisted the Biden administration’s calls to scale back their response to the Oct. 7 rampage. If Mr. Blinken hopes to de-escalate the situation, perhaps rather than lecture the Israelis he should spend more time convincing Palestinian officials that their decadeslong effort to destroy Israel has been a deadly failure and is antithetical to peace.