No, the Hamas attack on Israel has nothing to do with Biden

Formerly the party which demanded national unity and bipartisan support of sitting presidents during domestic or foreign crises, hypocritical members of the Republican Party are now openly lying about President Biden as conflict escalates between Hamas and Israel.

For context: on Saturday October 7th 2023, the terrorist group Hamas unleashed a fusillade of thousands of rockets into Israeli cities before raiding them, killing soldiers and civilians alike. Israel responded with airstrikes against Gaza and at the time of writing, the conflict is ongoing, with at least 700 Israelis, 560 Palestinians, and 9 Americans dead.

Over the weekend, Hamas claimed that Iran helped plan their surprise attack against Israel—though, at the time of writing, this was denied by Iran and has yet to be confirmed by either American or Israeli intelligence.

Which leads us to the cynical politics of the Republican Party back home. Though President Biden has strongly condemned the attacks, reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Israel, and warned foreign opportunists not to interfere with Israel’s operations, many members of the GOP have implied—or in some cases openly claimed—that Biden was complicit in the attacks because he unfroze $6 billion in Iranian assets as part of a recent prisoner exchange.

This is false.

The $6 billion in recently-unfrozen funds are held in the Qatari central bank, monitored by the U.S. State Department, not in Iran. Not a single cent has been spent. If and when the funds are accessed at a later date, it will be done in monitored transfers to vetted third party vendors and exclusively for humanitarian purposes.

Republican politicians are lying and using Iran’s possible but (presently) unconfirmed involvement as a basis to cynically smear President Biden at a time when their rhetorical history should compel them to unite behind him.

Unless, of course, what they really meant all this time is that, in a time of crisis, the country should only ever unite behind a sitting Republican president.

Regardless, this double standard should be rejected. We must hold lying, hypocritical Republicans to the same patriotic expectations they demand of the rest of us.