In a statement in the aftermath of the beginning of the current Israeli-Hamas conflict, the Biden administration announced that they would “support Israel taking necessary and proportionate action to defend its country and protect its people,” according to an email sent to the media from Adrienne Watson, National Security Council spokesperson.

When things are in proportion, they are proportionate – their relative magnitudes are in balance and make sense the way they are. When the punishment fits the crime, it is proportionate. Which presents a dilemma, first to the Israeli’s, who must interpret the statement made by its biggest, best ally, and second, to the US, whose words force one into the corner of contemplating the decapitation of Palestinian infants.

Sleepy Joe and Co. have already taken back one false step forward in trying to presume a position of leadership in this conflict, from a global standpoint, when it got rid of its Office of Palestinian Affairs Twitter/X post initially calling for restraint: “We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks.”

The administration claimed the statement was not “approved,” and did not reflect official US policy. This must mean that “proportionality” is official US policy.

One wonders what other restrictions the US has put on the Israeli response to decapitated babies, murdered, raped and defiled men, women, the infirm and children?

Perhaps Joseph Biden, in his personal phone calls with, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered the Israeli Prime Minister to take a pound of flesh from Hamas, no less and no more, as the Merchant of Venice’s Shylock was wont to do after demanding his price in court.

Shylock, a money lending Jew in the famous Shakespeare play, had a contract with a customer which required payment in human flesh – but only a pound – cut from a location of the loaner’s choice. What bargains have been made to accommodate unimaginable horror?

What depths of incompetence have been unleashed on the Israeli state by Joe Biden and his motley crew of wannabe statesmen and women? The bungled retreat from Afghanistan, and the $6 billion infusion to Iran glare blazingly in the face of the atrocities of savage terrorism by the minions of the Iranian mullahs.

What blunder will come next? What insensitive, incompetent, pejorative nonsense will come out of the black hole of idiocy that is the Biden White House? Even if they never opened their collective, out-of-touch-with-reality mouths again, enough damage has been done to last this whole dystopian horror show.

The Merchant of Venice ends with Shylock (remember, a stereotyped money lending Jew), standing in disbelief and anguish, as he is told by the ‘judge’ (really, an imposter) that it is forbidden for a Jew to draw the blood of Christian, so his debt is impossible to collect without himself committing a crime.

The Global War on Terror thus far has been a tragi-comedy of errors, missteps, and blunders, not unlike a Shakespeare play. But the blood is not fake, and the blows are real, and the actors unpaid, except with the indiscriminate savagery of terrorism.

Montgomery J. Granger is a three-times mobilized, retired US Army major, retired educator and author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior,” available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. Author web page: http://sbprabooks.com/montgomeryjgranger/ Follow him on Twitter/’X’, GAB, GETTR, TruthSocial, Bluesky @mjgranger1. Blog: http://www.savinggraceatguantanamobay.com You can find his military profile on http://www.RallyPoint.com