One of those who happened to be in Israel when the attacks started was former congressional staff and Communications Manager for the nonprofit American Accountability Foundation Yitz Friedman and his wife. The couple was there for their honeymoon as newlyweds. At the same time, they were celebrating a religious holiday at a synagogue near Jerusalem. In the middle of the service, the rabbi announced that reservists should check their phones for orders because the war just broke out.
It was not long before he realized that it was extremely dangerous for them as Hamas terrorists were hunting down American and Israeli citizens for executions or hostages. Just when they were scrambling to flee the country, an alert came that their return flight to America on Sunday was canceled as all major U.S. airlines had already suspended operations in the country.
"We called our embassy there. We called our government," he said during his interview at "John Solomon Report." "When I called them, they were very cold. They were dismissive. And they basically told me to go online and 'check out the flights yourself.'"
Mixed emotions of fear, sadness, and anger fill American Jews who found themselves trapped in the terrible situation as the Biden administration offered no evacuation help, even as other countries extricated their own citizens after a few days.
Rep. Mike Lawler, (R-N.Y.), who represents a district with a large Jewish population who visit Israel often, demanded Biden's regime move military planes into Israel to get our residents out. "I have hundreds of residents in the 17th Congressional District of New York who are currently stranded in Israel. And they were there for the holidays. And you know, obviously, they have family there, many of them. But they want to come home, understandably. And we need to do everything we can to get them out as quickly as possible," the lawmaker told Solomon during the podcast. "It's been very frustrating."
He added that he also called the White House numerous times, the State Department, and the Department of Transportation. He has also spoken with three major airlines. "It's a challenge here," Lawler lamented. Then, they were told during the Wednesday closed-door briefing that an evacuation plan for remaining U.S. citizens stranded in Israel was belatedly "in the making." "We had a classified briefing this morning," he said that day. "It was indicated that there would be an announcement forthcoming in the next 24 hours on this particular issue. The State Department later that day released a statement on X telling Americans still in Israel to try to catch a flight on a foreign airline. "We are also exploring contract options to facilitate U.S. citizen travel to nearby countries."
For U.S. citizens who want to leave Israel, commercial flights are available even if they are not direct to the U.S. We are also exploring contract options to facilitate U.S. citizen travel to nearby countries, and will provide updates to U.S. citizens who have registered via our… pic.twitter.com/qfvrffeA3Y
— Travel - State Dept (@TravelGov) October 11, 2023
The Friedmans eventually got a flight home on a United Arab Emirates flight. It was made possible by the former Presiden Donald Trump administration's Abraham Accords, which opened free travel between Arab neighbors as well as Israel. "President Biden had basically abandoned us and told us to fend for ourselves," he lamented. "And we were only able to get out thanks to something that President Trump did. The only reasonable tickets that we were able to find were tickets to the United States on Emirates Airlines to Dubai."
It’s all coming back: The U.S. failed to help Americans in Afghanistan when they decided to pull out in 2021
Appearing on "Just the News, No Noise," Rep. Harriet Hageman, (R-Wy) said that the slow evacuation help was predictable but unacceptable for an administration that has fumbled foreign crises dating to Afghanistan. "This is a tragedy, beyond tragedies, and this administration, they're not even doing much to get our own citizens out," she said. "We have citizens who are being held hostage, in addition to which there are all of the folks who have dual citizenship. It's like, yeah, you know, what if you didn't catch an airplane out of Israel? Good luck, that's probably a way to go! Who would ever take that kind of an approach as a leader?"
She added that the administration's policies are so poor that what they spend a lot of their time trying to do is distance themselves from having to make decisions. "And then when they make decisions or something goes bad, they spend all this time attempting to blame someone else for it. So, it isn't as though they step up to take responsibility."
Critics could not help but look back at the painful memories of the same failures in helping American citizens when Afghanistan was falling to the Taliban as the U.S. withdrew from that country in August 2021.
In April, the Biden administration released a 12-page report accepting blame for failing to arrange earlier evacuations for Americans and promised reforms for future crises. "Clearly we didn't get things right here with Afghanistan with how fast the Taliban was moving across the country," White House spokesman John Kirby said at the time. More than five months later, there were no signs of reform and lessons learned as the country tackled the Israel crisis, almost a week into the war. (Related: UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Why has there been ZERO video footage of the raids on the US embassy in Afghanistan or interviews with Americans supposedly rescued by the Biden Regime?)
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