Despite the pause, the Israeli military has enough weapons supplied by the U.S. and other partners to conduct the Rafah operation if it chooses to cast aside U.S. objections, the first official said.
He added that none of the pauses apply to the billions of dollars in additional israel aid passed by Congress last month. With regards to that, the Biden administration just approved $827 million worth of weapons and equipment for Israel in the latest tranche of Foreign Military Financing, the official said.
Take it with a grain of salt. A good first step however.
AFAIK Other stuff has gone forward but they're specifically holding back the large bombs that caused so much death in the rest of Gaza.
Now though we have the problem of Israel holding all but one border crossing closed. (Unless they've reopened some in the last 24 hours) Aid is not getting through at all right now. The single border crossing is in the North of Gaza where they're already in a Famine. The With now has no aid access by ground. It's all ship stuff, but the ground access is actually far better. There's also the problem that Israel will not let aid groups import fuel and with the borders closed they can't drive trucks in to unload the ships.
So the new position has to be either Israel lets aid in or the US steps out of the way in the UN security council.
This should have been the move on day 10 of the invasion. And a white house insisting on peace negotiations and the release of hostages on both sides. He would have instantly been viewed favorably on this issue and likely wouldn't have tanked his polling.
He would have instantly been viewed favorably on this issue and likely wouldn’t have tanked his polling.
His polling didn't tank in tandem with the Gaza genocide.
Most Americans are either in support or ambivalent towards Israel in this conflict.
Every poll I've seen asks the most important issue to voters, and it's always the economy, with the Israel-Palestine conflict coming in near the bottom.
Israel is committing a genocide, to be clear. The moral thing is to, at minimum, stop supporting their genocide. But that's not the same as saying that the Palestinian genocide is what brought Biden's poll numbers down, or that it's a silver bullet (or even an unambiguous net gain) electorally speaking.
I literally quoted your words right there: "Most Americans are either in support or ambivalent towards Israel in this conflict." Solid attempt at moving the goalposts though.
Do you... do you NOT know that 22% is less than 78%?
Or do you think that "Biden is doing just the right amount of help towards Israel" means... support for Palestine?
The 52-22 you cited was whether Israel's conduct was too far, not whether they supported Israel or Israeli aid in the conflict - as the other charts clearly demonstrate. But uh, you have fun disproving yourself with your own source.
You literally didn't read anything I wrote. Your chart is for a different thing than you claimed. You claimed most Americans support or don't care, I gave you two polls, one where that exact question was asked and it was just flat out untrue (which you ignored completely), and a second one to demonstrate that even in more favorable splits it was only true if you care what Republicans think. You apparently weren't put off by a direct poll answering the direct question you asked and figured digging into a related question in the poll that at least gave you a shot at sticking to your wrong statement was a totally important thing to do.
"Do you support the president's actions" is different than "do you approve of Israel in the conflict" with a whole lot of partisan defaulting and nothing in your wrong statement was about the president or about aid, not to mention "not sure" being an entirely different thing than "I don't care". This follow up trying to pretend people who think Israel is "going to far" isn't the same as not supporting Israel in the conflict is just pathetic. Just fucking accept you were wrong and move on with your life rather than dedicating yourself to these sad follow-ups.
This could have been a one line "oh, I guess it's changed from when I last looked". Or even nothing at all.
You have fun in the world where "Do you support Israel's current offensive" is the same as "Do you support Israel" or "Do you support continued aid to Israel"
Holy fuck man, that's not what you said! I quoted the claim I was correcting, I was very specific, then requoted it so you'd recognize your own words. Jesus the forum brain.
Just like all the other things Biden has done in this conflict, this is merely a symbolic gesture to say "don't blame us if Israel flattens Rafah".
The US has already provided huge amounts of unconditional military aid to Israel, and remains committed to continuing to do so. So Israel is free to shuffle around their ample resources internally to reach the same outcome.
Yeah, israel already has all it needs to carry out this mission. It remains to be seen if this action now will do anything, but given past actions by the US, I'm afraid it won't go far enough to stop israel.
Literally yes. There was a weapon shipment of bombs that was scheduled last week and they withheld them.
Biden’s comments and his decision last week to pause a shipment of heavy bombs to Israel are the most striking manifestations of the growing daylight between his administration and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Biden has said that Israel needs to do far more to protect the lives of civilians in Gaza.
The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs and 1,700 500-pound (225-kilogram) bombs, according to a senior U.S. administration official
I knew about that, but that action was taken a couple of days ago before the Rafah attack started. I remember the news articles about it then. Hopefully the above indicates this stoppage will be true for any and all weapons shipments, not just those bombs.
I'm only confused because I can't understand the conflict between the two statements. I certainly don't disagree with your second paragraph.
If you think he was saying the protesters will not vote for Biden, I kind of understand your point but that is also part of why Biden may be making the changes he is, which means again that you are both right - assuming the protesters decide Biden is worth voting for.
Well, it was an admittedly flippant comment done in passing in an effort to highlight the fact that regardless of any perceived proximal effect, protesters are still part of the electorate. What’s more though, is the effect the protest has on opinions of the wider electorate, which is where I would wager we move from a protest vote and into the area where major change can occur.
You're the one making the extraordinary claim that this decision had 'nothing' to do with massive, nation-wide, broadly covered protests occurring in a hotly contested election year amongst a key demographic.
That's just it though. Neither of us can point to a causal chain of events conclusively proving or disproving our belief.
The difference is, my belief is fully compatible with the mountain of circumstantial evidence mentioned in my above comment, whereas your belief requires one to completely ignore all of it.
So you're going to look at a decision in the heat of an enormously momentous election year, made by a president who is running for reelection, amidst numerous, widespread, widely covered protests made largely by a demographic that is absolutely critical to this candidate-president winning said election...You're going to look at all that and say it had 'nothing to do' with those same protests.
Not, 'there were other factors', nope, you confidently assert the protests had nothing to do with it and demand proof of a suggestion to the contrary.
Once again, check your tether.
You start distorting reality, and it gets tough to stop, by nature.
So if I have no proof the protests didn’t cause this, and you have no proof they did, I’d say it’s a wash and both are wrong.
Which was my point all along.
Just accept that a good thing happened without taking credit for something someone who you do nothing but shit on did.
Also, Internet discussions aren’t something one worries about “crushing” when they’re an adult. I’m not here to “crush” anything. I just disagree with your definition of “proof.”
Nothing more. Maybe relax a bit. We can just agree to disagree.
It's redundant to point out what can be readily observed by all, but however ineffective you are, it's clear you are trying to "crush" this.
I just disagree with your definition of “proof.”
You appear to actually disagree with my definition of evidence, since I've been open about the distinction, and you've ignored repeated offers to engage with my evidence, opting instead to double down on demanding proof in the face of overwhelming evidence.
One last try for posterity: why are you so sure that the protests had nothing to do with it, given how numerous, persistent, widely covered they are, and given the fact that they are happening during what may be the most impactful US presidential race in modern history?
Maybe relax a bit. We can just agree to disagree.
Your gaslighting is as clumsy as your attempts at discourse. I am writing this from my mobile phone, sat at a nice lakeside park on a lovely if overcast day, during my lunch break. You might be excited, but this isn't even taxing my pulse. Maybe stop projecting. We started this out agreeing to disagree, I just wanted you to check your tether to reality, though it's clear to me now that it's been dangling uselessly for a while now.
Of course not. And even if you want to pretend you were actually unclear on it, it was then explained to you several times. So whether or not its on you to know it is irrelevant. You did know it, and chose to continue your argument in bad faith from there on out.
If you claim something is proof of something, be prepared to prove it when asked, or don’t say it.
So change the word "proof" in the parent comment to "strong evidence". Is it clear to you now? Do you understand?
I can’t prove something didn’t happen kiddo. That’s not how this works. You claimed it did, the onus is on you. But- you clearly have nothing so…. Thanks for playing. We’re done here.
God damn, you’re so anti-Biden that you seek out anyone showing any understanding of nuance to troll them.
All I said was there is no proof. I never said I have hate anyone because they oppose anything.
You REALLY need to stop following me around and putting words in my mouth. Maybe get a life. Find something to do. Trolling isn’t your strongest skill here.
God damn, you’re so anti-Biden that you seek out anyone showing any understanding of nuance to troll them.
I just said Biden did a good thing: he listened to protesters.
All I said was there is no proof.
Uh huh. Can't have those protesters thinking that they're effective. Can't have them noticing that the needle fucking moved.
You're. Spreading. Propaganda.
You REALLY need to stop following me around
You're not in a position to talk about following people around. You kept spamming "I knew who posted this" every time you saw return2ozma post something that wasn't as pro-genocide as you would have preferred.
I’m saying that original poster said it was proof. It isn’t proof. Learn NUANCE.
Socialists think they can take credit for every good thing Biden does while simultaneously shitting on him at every turn?
That is not how this works. You’re all actively standing in the way of democracy over a single issue that you provenly barely understand.
I’m done with your bad-faith accusations and trolling. I gave you a chance to understand what I was talking about and you blatantly and willfully refuse to listen. So I’m blocking you.
And saying it is a result of protests is a tough statement to back up especially considering that old leaders do this shit all the time without the need of protestors.
If it was a result of, good. Glad it worked. But saying it’s proof of- which is what I responded to, is disingenuous.
Additionally, these socialists bag on him constantly to the point that it’s damn near a propaganda campaign and then take credit for anything good that he does?
I am claiming a negative. I sad it protests did not cause his actions.
We don’t know what it was caused by, therefore one cannot claim it’s proof of anything.
What should have been said, was
“Maybe the protests helped nudge this into happening….” Or…
“Looks like maybe the protests worked!”
But disingenuously claiming this as a “w” by the same people that spend all day finding hit-piece articles to drag Biden through the mud is pretty shitty.
You don’t get to call someone out as the worst thing for America and then take credit for the good that they do.
Again, the only way you can accurately make that claim is with the knowledge of what did cause it.
So prove your claim that the thing that caused this was not the protests, but something else instead.
What should have been said, was
Agreed. And what you should have said was "There's no evidence that the protests caused his actions." But you didn't, you instead made a falsifiable claim, and refuse to back it up with proof. Making you a hypocrite.
Upvoted because I'm happy you're right. Biden will lose to the orange criminal if he doesn't stand up and stop money and weapons to Israel. America is fucked if it keeps supporting Israel.
I think you're overestimating how many voters are deeply against Israel's assault on Palestine, while also underestimating the ability of those virtuous people to understand the landslide of harmful outcomes that would come with another trump presidency.
Trump won without the popular vote. He won Michigan by ~10,000 votes in 2016. I'm not the one who decided this system, but this system doesn't give a shit about the majority. It doesn't take much to sway the balance.
Yeah I mean I could have qualified my statement better but you know if they are voters, and they go to the polls, and Palestine is on their mind instead of domestic matters, they're not going to pick the other guy.
I will vote for Biden when he genuinely stops the genocide, until that point I really don’t care what silly political posturing and shuffling around of bombs in warehouses and on logistics sheets Biden does. Even if we stop providing weapons right now of any kind, the entire apparatus of the IDF and indeed Israel itself is dependent on the US military industrial complex, the fact that Biden has not used that leverage to stop this genocide of Palestinians means he is complicit.
Genocide is my red line, and if Biden is going to be windy washy about coming back over that red line don’t blame people like me for not being satisfied.
I'm sure many people will tell you the same: not voting for Biden is the equivalent of voting for Trump. Play it out in your minds eye; explaining to your children why you voted for Trump.
So you’ll do what instead? Vote for Trump? Not vote? Throw away your vote to a 3rd party? What a naive and dangerous viewpoint.
Sad to see your “red line” isn’t electing a dictator, because that’s what will happen if Trump wins. Spare me any twisted logic of how that’s not what would happen in your scenarios.
Isn’t this situation exactly when you should look to third parties? There is a large group of people who are dissatisfied with the policies of Biden and who absolutely do not want another term of Trump.
If you vote for either of them, it sends the message that you condone their presidency. If you abstain from voting then it sends the message that you don’t care about government policy and therefore, policy won’t care for your interests.
If you are a third party voter, aren’t the big parties incentivized to try and win your vote over for themselves?
I’m probably going to vote for Biden, but you have to wonder at what point does this diametric system break down.
So you’ll do what instead? Vote for Trump? Not vote? Throw away your vote to a 3rd party? What a naive and dangerous viewpoint.
I am not the naive and dangerous person here, there isn't anything I have to do or have to stop doing.
Biden is the one who is directly enabling a genocide being committed by an "ally" that the US has an immense amount of material and political leverage over. Biden is the one throwing away his campaign because Israel getting unilateral ability to do and say whatever it wants is apparently more important to centrist democrats than winning elections (even though Netanyahu has continually spit in Biden's face).
Sad to see your “red line” isn’t electing a dictator, because that’s what will happen if Trump wins. Spare me any twisted logic of how that’s not what would happen in your scenarios.
Spare me your liberal crocodile tears about how this is all progressives fault for having a red line at "genocide". It is the job of a presidential candidate to convince voters to vote for them, in a normal election with a normal shitty centrist democrat candidate I would be fine helping them win even though they always shit on progressives helping get them elected the entire time.
Nah, I'll sit this one out, I'll call Biden "Genocide Joe", this has gone wayyyy too far and honestly the coalition of progressives with centrist democrats is kind of dead at this point. Y'all think we are going to show up to make the DNC's grassroots fundraising and key canvassing in important states work? We are the ones with energy, with ideas, with policy knowledge, and Biden just put us in a position where we have to violate our morals at a serious level to do the work to get Biden elected and guess who's fault that is?
Guess who has the power to remedy this schism among Democratic voters?
It's possible to be right about something (your take on the US complicity in Israel's genocide") but also be completely wrong about how to stop it and the consequences of your response.
Because if you want the killing to stop sitting out an election or refusing to vote for Biden is not going to work out for you. You will be complicit in the killing of women, transgender people, brown people and more. Because - and I really don't think I'm being hyperbolic here - those are the consequences of a Trump administration.
Far far worse is the simple fact that our chances of stopping Israel's genocide go to zero under Trump. You think a Republican administration will stop it if you protest? At least with Biden you know it works and you know you can make a dent.
Far far worse is the simple fact that our chances of stopping Israel’s genocide go to zero under Trump. You think a Republican administration will stop it if you protest? At least with Biden you know it works and you know you can make a dent.
Why are you lecturing me about this? Stop wasting your breath on me.
It is very simple, if Biden wants my vote and votes from people like me, he can stop the genocide in Palestine.
Why are you lecturing me about this? Stop wasting your breath on me.
You have a peculiar conception of "lecturing".
But do you want me to stop saying these things because you are immune to reason? You cannot possibly change your mind, no matter the argument or facts presented? No matter that Biden is himself simply does not have the power to unilaterally stop Israel's actions?
I do have one simple question for you: What about the genocide that will happen under Trump? Do you prefer that? Do you prefer the murder of women, transgender people, gays and brown people over Palestinians?
Because the choice is incredibly binary: Less killing under Biden or more killing under Trump.
No matter that Biden is himself simply does not have the power to unilaterally stop Israel’s actions?
He literally does, Israel cannot function as a state without an immense amount of US diplomatic cover, weapons, and fucktons of money.
Biden can stop it right this genocide in a matter of minutes by calling up Netanyahu and telling him it is over, full stop. I am sorry but I will not vote for a candidate that behaves this way.
Netanyahu just told Biden to take a hike. Thus, “full stop” disproving what you have said.
Netanyahu will say whatever he wants on tv, the Israeli military industrial complex is utterly dependent upon the US military industrial complex. Netanyahu has no play here and everybody knows it except apparently Biden (or maybe he just doesn’t care I don’t know, it honestly doesn’t matter at the end of the day, action matters).
At this point you are just making shit up to justify your nonsensical position.
We can't eliminate the US military industrial complex. We can limit the harm by putting pressure on an administration - and, crucially it is working to some degree. Do you honestly think you are going to be able to affect any change whatsoever if Trump gets elected? REALLY?
We can limit the harm by putting pressure on an administration - and, crucially it is working to some degree.
Cool so what me and other people who have had enough genocide and think similarly are going to do is loudly tell Biden (which we are doing) that we want to vote for him, but we can’t unless he stops the genocide of Palestinians. Words are meaningless, small concessions are meaningless, he needs to stop the genocide NOW.
It appears at this point, this is the only way leverage will work because centrists democrats have proven thoroughly how cynically they see progressives and the ideologies they base their politics on. Crucially, I didn’t create these conditions where this is the only place progressives feel they have power in this coalition, centrist democrats like Biden did. I don’t accept the blame for that, I have always made it very clear I hope that genocide is a red line for me as a voter, full stop.
Cool so what me and other people who have had enough genocide and think similarly are going to do is loudly tell Biden (which we are doing) that we want to vote for him, but we can’t unless he stops the genocide of Palestinians
That's a fair point and I don't have a great counter to that not least because that pressure is working. In fact my only argument is a bit of a future hypothetical -- that there are two consequences of this, namely: (a) it's causing a lot of younger voters to not want to vote; (b) it's causing a lot of problems for Biden with some voting blocs because he is not toeing the Zionist 'party line'. IOW, it could endanger his election prospects.
And that comes down to a difference of opinion: Your red line is Israeli genocide, mine is a Trump administration and all that comes with it. For me anything that makes a Trump administration more likely makes more genocide more likely and about a dozen other things that are going to set us back decades, including more federal and possibly SCOTUS judges and, crucially, more baked-in support for Israel and Russia's actions in Ukraine.
I appreciate that for you this may be a chance you are willing to take. I have trouble understanding why anyone would feel that way given the systemic issues of undermining US support for Israel that mean we cannot "stop the genocide" anyway. But thank you for having this dialog.
I appreciate that for you this may be a chance you are willing to take. I have trouble understanding why anyone would feel that way given the systemic issues of undermining US support for Israel that mean we cannot “stop the genocide” anyway. But thank you for having this dialog.
I understand you feeling that way. I feeling strongly about my position and I will not budge from it because it is founded in my beliefs, I can’t just see this as a tactical decision divorced from the aspect of me as a citizen directly endorsing probably one of the worst genocides in my lifetime (happening with my countries bombs, my countries military training, likely with military advisors from my countries military heavily assisting every level of this genocide).
This is a prototype for a darker future of mass scale violence against groups of people, for example how many US police departments have trained directly with the IDF, the entity that is slaughtering innocent civilians left and right in Gaza? The answer is a lotttt of them. This is a prototype and this is a test and if we do not reject this genocide with an existential disgust and fervor and a willingness to walk away from this voting coalition that benefits us in the near term, the prototype will have been demonstrated to be successful to the ruling class and that future should scare the shit out of you.
Shame on us for being afraid to defend our value because corporate democrats have set up an impossible choice and then argued for progressives to choose them by attacking them rhetorically.
I appreciate that for you this may be a chance you are willing to take
I don’t see this as be willing or not willing to take a chance, I see this as there being no choice in the first place. This is a moment where it’s “ride or die”. Biden can put his chips on the table and prove he treats progressive voters as genuinely part of his core voting bloc. Or he can keep assuming that young progressives will fall in line no matter what and in my opinion that is equally as catastrophic of an outcome if we just fall in line and agree to sweep Biden’s despicable enabling of the mass scale slaughter of 70,000? Palestinian men, women and children (we don’t even know the real numbers because Israel has killed all the journalists it can get its hand on in Gaza).
Now is the time to wield our power, now is the time to shut this shit down. There is no next time, no “we just have to vote for Biden here and then we can do the good work later”. If Biden refuses to budge on this, we have already lost and centrist democrats leveling the blame for that at people like me is lazy and frankly absurd.
I want to vote for Biden and I will, as soon as he calls up Netanyahu and tells him this genocide is over, period. I am not being a troll, if Biden takes serious action and stops this genocide then he immediately gets my vote. Very simple calculation for Biden here.
the prototype will have been demonstrated to be successful to the ruling class and that future should scare the shit out of you
This prototype was proven "successful" time and again. This country was founded on genocide and authoritarian, racist control. I don't fear that it will become that because it has been that and in so many ways is that still. As I see it Democrats may be participants and supporters of that but it's given the options, there's no question it's the better of the two in that it allows some progress. Republicans want full-on fascism because they simply don't believe in democracy or the compromise necessary to support democratic principles or any kind of shit toward a progressive or socialist future. And I'll take the thin veneer of that over nothing at all.
I get that you are willing to let it all crumble. I felt that way in 2016 and you know what? It was so much worse than I imagined it could be because I had way too much faith in our "institutions" and the strength of our laws. I despise HRC for her right-wing neocon ways but I think often of how much better things would be if she had been able to take the office that she won.
Shame on us for being afraid to defend our value
It's not a question of are we defending our values, it's a question of how. I believe that both participation within our system and active protest against it are critical. If we don't have the former we don't have a foundation for the latter. If we break things so much that a Republican administration gets into office, we are taking so many steps backward we may never move forward again in our lifetimes.
Now is the time to wield our power, now is the time to shut this shit down.
I admire the sentiment and support you in that. Our conversation has softened my view and given me insight into the necessity of standing firmly on principle, even in this instance. I don't fully agree with it but I can definitely respect it.
Well some protests. Did anything really happen at all after the BLM protests? Cops are still able to get away with murder and have very little oversight.
The BLM protests did work, they exposed that the US is a violent police state where voting doesn’t actually do anything to change whether we live in a violent police state because both the Republicans and centrist Democrats will collaborate as much as needed to betray their voters in order to sustain the system of policing and prisons.
The fact that in the wake of George Floyd a lot of cities and municipalities actually went more draconian with their policing laws in backlash is only an indicator of a failure of the BLM protests if you don’t look closer, step closer and you see the truth is far scarier, the BLM protests did massively change the psyche of America, it’s just that actually has no effect upon policy making because democracy is so broken in the US to the extreme point where many city governments chose to actively do their opposite of the will of the people as a show of force and a chilling warning to leftists.
I'm mostly with you, but if I tried to exercise and my legs broke, it'd be kinda wild to say the exercising "worked" because it exposed my shitty, unhealthy knees
That said, I'm all for changing up the narrative and using practical propaganda to expand support for protesters!
I’m mostly with you, but if I tried to exercise and my legs broke, it’d be kinda wild to say the exercising “worked” because it exposed my shitty, unhealthy knees
I mean I think where I disagree with this mapping of the metaphor is that it isn't a personal failing or problem, BLM was one of the biggest protest movements around police violence ever.
In particular, I witnessed ACAB go from something that when I would say it would be nearly impossible to defend to many people, to something almost everyone (with some lefty tendencies ofc) immediately understands and agrees with. The first shift was BLM, the second Uvalde.
Agreed, and the important thing to remember is that the shift in police to seeing the population they are policing as their enemy, and as universally dangerous in black and poor areas, has been accelerating for decades.
The other side (police, the prison industrial complex and the 1% who employs these thugs) is already very clear about this this being Us vs Them, but the general US population was still pretty heavily in denial about it up until BLM.
It depends on what kind of effect you're expecting. Did the US state and federal governments suddenly defund the police and start sending reparations to black Americans? No, not exactly. But Derek Chauvin was convicted and sent to prison for 20+ years. Different municipalities did reform their police departments and even implemented things like unarmed crisis response units. BLM has helped introduce policy discussions that would not otherwise be on the table.
The effects of a protest aren't always direct or immediate, their benefit is as much about changing the national narrative on any given issue than it is just achieving a primary goal by the time the protesrs end, and also it's a way to learn what's effective and what's not.
For example, part of why these recent protests were effective and why they illicited such a desperate response from authorities and the media is because the young people looked at the failed tactics from protests like the Occupy movement and adapted.
One if the weaknesses of Occupy was that there was no unified voice, instead the media would walk up and find some random individual, get them to make some unflattering soundbyte and then put that on blast on their networks. By contrast, the students anti-genocide protests designated a spokes person, and when the media approached random protestors they would just direct the media to that spokes person.
It's really smart and that kind of tactical refinement is arguably a result of the failures of Occupy. It made it difficult for the media to fool the public as to what these protests are really about, and you see that born out in people's growing awareness of how fucked up the situation in Gaza not only is right now, but has been for decades.
Protesting and social justice is iterative and experimental, it's about making it more difficult to just continue with business as usual going forward.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he would not supply offensive weapons that Israel could use to launch an all-out assault on Rafah — the last major Hamas stronghold in Gaza — over concern for the well-being of the more than 1 million civilians sheltering there.
It also comes as the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of war.
Biden’s administration in April began reviewing future transfers of military assistance as Netanyahu’s government appeared to move closer toward an invasion of Rafah, despite months of opposition from the White House.
The decision also drew a sharp rebuke from House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who said they only learned about the military aid holdup from press reports, despite assurances from the Biden administration that no such pauses were in the works.
“If we stop weapons necessary to destroy the enemies of the state of Israel at a time of great peril, we will pay a price,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., his voice rising in anger during an exchange with Austin.
The State Department is separately considering whether to approve the continued transfer of Joint Direct Attack Munition kits, which place precision guidance systems onto bombs, to Israel, but the review didn’t pertain to imminent shipments.
The original article contains 1,417 words, the summary contains 245 words. Saved 83%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Same interview.. “US is committed to Israel’s defense and would supply Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other defensive arms, but that if Israel goes into Rafah, we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells used”. Defense secretary Austin Lloyd reiterated that same point
Ok, good? All you can do with Iron Dome is shoot down mortar rounds and slower-moving rockets (and maybe drones?) - it really only works for defense. I don't see the problem.
In general I love the idea of the US moving more and more towards only supplying defensive munitions to countries (such as the long list of really fucked up countries we deal arms to that would surprise most people).
We could always take special action to supply offensive arms in response to justified conflicts such as in Ukraine, but let's not let authoritarians build up a stockpile of offensive capabilities from US sweat during times of peace. That's a recipe for less peace.
But by all means we should let allies buy as much defensive capabilities as they desire.
Being an ally to the US should be more associated with the benefits of protection from bullies than capacity to bully.
(And most important IMO is that we don't allow selling tech officially or privately by US corporations to enable authoritarians to abuse their own citizens. Something we very much do and I really wish we didn't.)
My issue is with the definition of defense, seeing as the US's department of war is called the department of defense and in the past israel's actions have been excused as a right to defend itself.
I'm fine with this model. Defend them from attacks, but don't help them offensively. And leverage our defensive aid to strongarm them into not being genocidal.
US worded its statements carefully. They'll still provide support for all the other parts of Israel's military operations, just not for the Rafah invasion. Israel is free to shuffle things around so that it won't make a difference.
