Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map: Victoria Coates
The Heritage Foundation's Victoria Coates details the alleged connection between Hamas and Iran to FOX News Digital.
A former Trump deputy national security adviser says the United States cannot keep "feeding" the "monster" Iran following Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel.
Victoria Coates, who serves as the vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, says Iran serves as the "lifeline" to terrorist group Hamas.
"Iran's motivation is the same it's been for more than 40 years," Coates said. "They hate Israel. They hate the United States, and they are just fundamentally committed to the eradication of the Jewish state. They want to wipe Israel off the map and they see the Palestinians and Hamas as basically useful idiots in that campaign and they don't care how many Palestinians die. They don't care how badly the people in Gaza suffer."
Iran started "pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars into Hamas" when the group attempted to set up independent control of Gaza years ago, she said.
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"They don't really have much else to keep going in Gaza except for contributions through things like the United Nations, which are important to remember, funded by the U.S. taxpayer," she told FOX News Digital. "Now, we cut that off during the Trump administration, but that money has been flowing again for the last two years."
While President Biden’s strong words in support of Israel were welcomed, Coates said the commander-in-chief must "follow up with action."
"The Biden administration has been very eager to present Iran as somehow a reasonable actor, good faith negotiating partner, on the nuclear issue, but what happened over the weekend just rips the rug right out from under that," she argued. "This is not a rational, normal state that is behaving in any kind of a reasonable way."
Former President Trump implemented a maximum pressure campaign against Iran on the logic that if Iranians were allowed to bring in a lot of money from oil sales after the JCPOA relaxed the U.N. sanctions regime, that money would be used for military means. Coates said Biden "immediately stopped enforcing the sanctions" on Iran when he took office.
"Unfortunately, for 30 months now, we've had a really harsh anti-Israel policy," she said.
Over a billion dollars in taxpayer money has been poured into Palestinian entities through direct donations and the United Nations. Now, the top priority must be removing the money, the adviser argued.
"Iran is now exporting a million barrels a day to China alone. There are others and that is the money that fueled this attack. Cut that off ... don't do things like unfreeze the $6 billion ransom for the hostages because that's what's going to fuel the next attack. I actually don't think it fueled this attack. It was too recent, but that is money that is now in the bank for them to do something similar in the future."
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Demonstrators attend an "emergency rally for Gaza" outside of the Israeli Consulate in New York City, New York on Monday. Supporters of both Palestine and Israel clashed at the event as Israel remains at war with Hamas. (Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News Digital)
The United States must now navigate its "primary responsibility for supporting Israel" because European countries and Israel’s neighbors will not contribute to their support. This comes amid balancing continued funding to Ukraine.
"It's Israel and the U.S. or Israel alone," she said, "and I don't think anybody wants that. So, then if it's a question, are we going to send the stuff that's in Israel to Ukraine or are we going to keep it in Israel for Israel's use?... These are going to be very difficult questions."
NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby maintained the administration has not seen any evidence of Iran's direct involvement in this attack, but "the book is not closed on it." However, many political leaders are pointing fingers at the country.
"Iran-backed Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel & went house-to-house to kill civilians—& are being celebrated as heroes in Palestinian cities," Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., posted on X. "This is what the anti-Semitic haters of Israel mean when they say "from the river to the sea."
Former White House press secretary and FOX News host Kayleigh McEnany took aim at the president's failure to mention Iran in his address after the attack.
"You cannot sever the terrorism against Israel from the actions of Iran," she posted on X.
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