Secretary of State Antony Blinken looks to have been played for an absolute fool yet again by a bad actor on the international stage.

This can’t just be chalked up to bad timing on Blinken’s part. The State Department, under Blinken’s direction, decided to ignore the hold that Republicans had placed on “food aid” to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). So Blinken gave the green light, without any announcement, to give UNRWA $75 million to feed Palestinians.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken overrode a Republican-issued hold on $75 million in food assistance for the Palestinian Territories, hours before the money was set to be forcibly redistributed elsewhere.

Blinken’s under-the-radar approval of the funds comes after months of pressure from Democratic lawmakers in both houses of Congress, as well as dozens of civil society organizations, all of which warned abiding by the Republican hold on the previously appropriated funds would lead to 1.2 million Palestinians being without food and causing a humanitarian crisis.

Sen. Jim Risch — the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — had placed holds on the State Department from providing the funding, which is designated for food assistance for Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Though the State Department did not publicize the funding, UNRWA-USA said “Thank you [Blinken] for providing $75 million in food assistance to Palestine refugees in Gaza! This generous support from the American people will allow UNRWA to continue this critical aspect of its humanitarian and human development work through the end of Q1 2024.”

The Biden administration had no legal obligation to abide by the hold, which is a courtesy extended by the executive branch to the legislative branch. Blinken’s approval of the funds came days after U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield announced an additional $73 million in funding to support UNRWA’s core and emergency services.

And then Blinken held an official phone call with Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday. The official readout goes like this:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Secretary Blinken expressed continued concern about ongoing violence in the West Bank. He reaffirmed U.S. support for measures to advance freedom and security and improve the quality of life for the Palestinian people. The Secretary and President Abbas discussed their support for a two-state solution and opposition to actions endangering its viability.

The “ongoing violence in the West Bank” refers to Israeli military raids in the West Bank.

In an earlier statement, the IDF said Palestinians set off a number of explosive devices near troops in Tulkarem.

The IDF also said troops hit a number of armed Palestinians. There was no immediate information on the number of wounded Palestinians and their conditions in Tulkarem.

A local wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group claimed responsibility for targeting the Israeli troops with gunfire and makeshift bombs, publishing photos of blood-soaked items purported to belong to wounded soldiers.

Wishing a speedy recovery to the wounded officers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his accusation that Iran is behind a recent series of attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers in the West Bank, many of them deadly.

“We see Iran as directly responsible for the terror wave in Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said in a statement, using the biblical names for the West Bank. “The government of Israel will determinedly fight terror and defend Israeli citizens.”

Abbas, of course, is not in control of Palestine in the least, and it would be a good idea if the State Department and Antony Blinken acknowledged that reality. Hamas controls Gaza, and Abbas has refused to hold another election since Hamas would likely win in the West Bank as well. It’s not that Abbas disagrees with Hamas’s end goals – Abbas was caught yet again preaching anti-Semitism to his Fatah group, which got international attention. The mayor of Paris even stripped him of a 2015 prize that he had been awarded by the city for peace. Wow. Next, they will send a strongly worded letter! That’s what happens when the French get mad!

Why Blinken, the Biden administration, or the United States government in general chooses to pretend that Abbas is some kind of peace leader is beyond me. The only way that Abbas differs from Hamas is that he wants to play the long game for the power and the grift, instead of just attacking Israel with no other goal in mind except death. But Gaza firing rockets into Israel early Saturday morning is certainly NOT going to help achieve any of those things that Blinken and Abbas allegedly support. This is the Jewish Sabbath, AND the holiday of Simchat Torah. And not only are rockets being fired, people have died, and now there is allegedly actual terrorist infiltration by Gaza into Israel.

A number of militants from Gaza have entered Israeli territory, the Israel Defense Forces said Saturday, shortly after a barrage of rockets left one person dead and at least three injured.

The IDF has warned Israelis who live near Gaza to stay in their homes.

One person died and at least three were injured when a barrage of rockets was fired from Gaza toward Israel Saturday morning, Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) rescue service said.

The rockets, which were witnessed by a CNN producer in Gaza, prompted sirens as far north as the Tel Aviv area, east to Beer Sheva, and many other locations in between.

A woman in her 70s in Kfar Aviv in the Gderot region died following the barrage, the MDA said.

Israelis across the country—on Shabbat and the holiday of Simchat Torah—woke up to sirens sounding and Hamas firing rockets at them from Gaza this morning.

We will defend ourselves. pic.twitter.com/S9GN8fld4Y

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 7, 2023

Rockets being shot from Gaza are bad enough, but actual Hamas gunmen getting into Israel? That is an escalation at a whole new level. And Israel is responding exactly as they should to what is essentially a declaration of war.

As warning sirens sounded across southern and central Israel, including in Jerusalem, Israel’s military said it was on a war footing as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting of security officials.

Hamas military commander Mohammad Deif announced the start of the operation in a broadcast on Hamas media, calling on Palestinians everywhere to fight.

“This is the day of the greatest battle to end the last occupation on earth,” he said, adding that 5,000 rockets had been launched.

https://twitter.com/IsraelMFA/status/1710541100459397514

You know what happens when the United States gives money “for food” to groups like UNRWA to feed starving Palestinians? It means that the Palestinians get fed without Hamas or Fatah or Islamic Jihad having to lift a finger to do it. It means that they can spend their time and money on attacking Israel, instead of feeding their own people or focusing on anything that would make the lives of Palestinians better. $75 million can buy a lot of food (not as much as it would have, thanks to Bidenomics, but still a lot), and that’s money freed up to… oh, get rockets and weapons and pay off “martyrs” for the cause.

And there is hapless Antony Blinken yet again, giving money to feed the people the bad actors say they represent, talking to their so-called leaders on the phone, and then they just happen to start firing off rockets into Israel. The press will give Blinken and Biden a pass on this, of course, and just blame Netanyahu instead. Maybe, just MAYBE, Senator Risch had a point when he blocked the funds. And MAYBE the Palestinians need to stop being coddled by Blinken and Biden, and forced to actually behave like rational adults before they get any more handouts from the American taxpayer. Because in the end, that’s OUR MONEY that Blinken handed out. He can waste time making all the phone calls he wants, but he gave away OUR MONEY. And what do the terror groups that control the Palestinian areas do in return? Fire off rockets and start a war.

We have top men working in government. Top. Men.

Featured image: Secretary of State Antony Blinken, official State Department Photo by Ronny Przysucha, cropped, public domain