Three months prior to the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, former Democratic vice presidential nominee and U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who died Wednesday, slammed President Joe Biden for snubbing Israel’s democratically elected government and issued a prescient warning that the Biden administration’s eagerness to offer the Iranian government billions of dollars would allow the Islamic Republic of Iran to “suppress their own people” and “enable their proxy terrorists to kill a lot of other people.”
In late June, Lieberman criticized the Biden administration for refusing to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, as he accused it of “strengthening” the otherwise “weak” Iranian regime.
In an interview with Breitbart News at the time, the one-time vice-presidential nominee spoke out against the White House’s “mistake” in that the prime minister of Israel — elected the previous November — had yet to be invited to the White House.
“Honestly, most of the world doesn’t know that the prime minister of Israel has not been invited to the White House [but] I think it’s a mistake,” he stated.
“[Though] it’s true some of the enemies of the U.S. and [President Joe] Biden may focus on it, and the enemies of Israel may focus on it, but it’s a mistake,” he reiterated.
The long-time U.S. senator from Connecticut who had visited Israel and its prime minister the previous week, explained that, despite any differences, the leader of the Jewish State deserves a presidential invitation to the White House as soon as possible:
So far, President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu have tried hard not to get into a public fight, but really the prime minister was duly elected by the people of Israel; he formed a coalition. President Biden and a lot of Americans may not like that coalition, but it resulted from a democratic process in a country that has been one of America’s closest allies in the world — Israel.
“The prime minister of Israel should be invited to the White House by the President of the United States as soon as possible,” he added emphatically.
Recent weeks have seen an unprecedented strain in United States-Israel relations, with President Biden even endorsing a call by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) for Israel to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold new elections.
On the Biden administration’s persistence in pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran, Lieberman expressed his inability to comprehend “what rationally would lead anybody to think they could make a deal or an understanding — whatever they’re going to call it — with the Islamic Republic of Iran that we could rely on.”
He also slammed the notion of “another deal that would give the Iranian government billions of dollars that they will use to suppress their own people and enable their proxy terrorists to kill a lot of other people,” while warning of additional consequences and harms caused by such moves.
WATCH: IDF Discovers Bags of Cash from Iran for Hamas Leaders
Israel Defense Forces
“It will also do something really dangerous. It will legitimize the fact that they have enriched uranium to 60 percent — that’s pretty close to being ready to build nuclear weapons,” he stated, noting that only ten years prior, “there was an international agreement that if they enriched uranium at all, that would be a serious violation that would bring the force of the world down on them, yet now we’re saying OK to 60 percent.”
Lieberman concluded by warning against emboldening the Islamic theocracy, calling on the administration to instead increase Tehran’s fears. “In my opinion, dealing with the Iranians now when they are weak and dangerous only strengthens them,” he argued. “Really, we ought to try and make them more afraid of us.”
Roughly three months following his remarks, on October 7, the Iranian proxy Islamist terrorist organization Hamas perpetrated the worst terrorist attack in Israel’s history, targeting attendees at a music festival and those in southern Israeli towns, all while thousands of rockets rained down on Israeli civilian centers.
Graphic Content Warning– WATCH: Home Where Hamas Murdered an Israeli Family in Kibbutz Be’eri
The massacre saw terrorists kill approximately 1,200 people and wound over 5,300, with at least 242 hostages taken — more than half of whom still remain in Gaza. The vast majority of the victims are civilians and include American citizens.
It has been 171 days since these 5 Americans were captured and held hostage by Hamas. 3 others have died in captivity. The American hostages:
• Keith Siegel
• Hersh Goldberg-Polin
• Omer Neutra
• Edan Alexander
• Sagui Dekel-Chen#BringThemHomeNow pic.twitter.com/561CnFxMJ2— Morgan Ortagus (@MorganOrtagus) March 25, 2024
The government of Iran responded to initial reports of the attack by staging a massive street party in Tehran on October 7. Attendees chanted “death to Israel” and “death to America” and were treated with free lemonade and a fireworks display to celebrate the mass killing of Israelis.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei celebrated the carnage while the brutal events were unfolding, writing in a post, “God willing, the cancer of the usurper Zionist regime will be eradicated at the hands of the Palestinian people.”
God willing, the cancer of the usurper Zionist regime will be eradicated at the hands of the Palestinian people and the Resistance forces throughout the region. #AlAqsaStorm pic.twitter.com/XDyxoTT4gw
— Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) October 7, 2023
Following the massacre, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) blamed the “virulently anti-Israel” Biden administration for having funded Hamas’s brutal attack in Israel “in a very real and concrete way,”
In August, a mere six weeks before the October 7 attack, Republican officials blasted the Biden administration for “bowing to the Ayatollah” and “endangering” Americans, after it struck a deal with the Iranian regime to transfer five Iranian-Americans from prison to house arrest in exchange for billions in unfrozen assets.
Iran is the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism and one of the primary funders of Hamas despite being a Shiite theocracy while Hamas is a Sunni Muslim terrorist group. A U.S. State Department report estimated in 2020 that Iran pays Hamas and a rival anti-Israel terror group, “Palestinian Islamic Jihad” (PIJ), $100 million a year. A spokesman for Hamas, Ghazi Hamad, told the BBC on October 7 that Iran had offered “direct backing” for the terrorist attack on Israel.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari announced the finding of official Hamas documents from 2020 detailing the funds transferred by Iran between the years 2014 and 2020 to Hamas and to the group’s terror leader Yahya Sinwar. More than one hundred and fifty million dollars were transferred from Iran to Hamas in yet another example of how Iran exports terror across the Middle East, posing a global threat.
Tehran has long viewed the United States as a principal antagonist and has frequently accused the United States of inciting protesters in a bid to “destabilize” the region.
In September 2021 Iranian Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier-General Abolfazl Shekarchi affirmed that America is the Iranian republic’s top enemy, while the Islamic Republic’s “supreme leader” has boasted of having “defeated” the United States, as he assured a crowd of supporters that their “Death to America!” chant would yet be fulfilled as a “new order” would relegate the United States to isolation.
Lieberman, who was hailed as the last of the moderates by conservative radio host Mark Levin, had a distinguished career marked by his tenure as the only Orthodox Jewish member of the Senate. He was known for his New Deal liberal values, moral voice in the Senate, and bipartisan efforts, including endorsing Republican Sen. John McCain for president.
Sara and I grieve with Hadassah and the entire Leiberman family on the passing of our beloved Joe Leiberman.
Joe was an exemplary public servant, an American patriot and a matchless champion of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.
In my very first meeting with him…
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 27, 2024
On Wednesday, the former U.S. senator passed away at the age of 82 due to complications from a fall, according to his family.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
