(RepublicanPress.org) – The fighting between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas continues to intensify eight months after the Sunni Islamist group launched an air, land, and sea assault on Israeli territory. On May 12, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) sat for an interview with NBC “Meet the Press” host, Kristen Welker, to discuss recent developments in that conflict.
Welker started the discussion by asking Graham about Joe Biden’s recent decision to cut off the delivery of “high payload bombs” to Israel. Graham said America would “pay a price” if the president withheld weapons the Israelis needed to “destroy” their enemies. Graham characterized the president’s decision to continue to withhold those weapons if Israel invades Rafah as “absurd” and “obscene.”
Graham said the situation on the ground in the Middle East was “Hiroshima and Nagasaki on steroids,” a reference to two Japanese cities bombed with nuclear weapons on former President Harry Truman’s orders to end WWII. The lawmaker explained that he thought it would be impossible for Israel to “mitigate civilian deaths in Gaza” since Hamas continues using “their own population as human shields.”
After some cross-talk, Graham asked a rhetorical question to clarify his position regarding America’s decision to drop nuclear bombs on those two Japanese cities. “To end a war we could not afford to lose,” he replied.
Continuing, Graham said America needed to “give Israel the bombs” that its military forces needed to “end the war they can’t afford to lose.” He also suggested that the Biden administration work with Israel to minimize civilian casualties.
Graham provided additional details regarding Israel’s need to wipe out Hamas. He said defeating the group was “nonnegotiable” and that “no one in Israel [would] allow Hamas to be standing” politically or militarily at the end of the war. Graham noted that his concerns about the conflict didn’t include the kind of weapons the IDF was using. Instead, he had a problem with “the tactics Hamas is using.”
The senator also warned that the decision to restrict the delivery of weapons while Israel fought a three-front war with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran constituted the “worst decision in the history” of the United States’ relationship with Israel.
Graham concluded that portion of the interview by asking why it was okay for the US to “drop two nuclear bombs” on Japan to end its “existential threat of war?” He responded to his query by telling Israel to “do whatever you have to do” to defeat Hamas.
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