After it was revealed on Monday that president Biden approved a $735 million arms sale to Israel amid the bombing of Gaza, some House Democrats raised concerns about the potential deal.
The Hill reported that Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told lawmakers on Monday night that he would send a letter to President Biden requesting the Israeli arms deal be delayed. But Meeks quickly backed down on the plan and told reporters on Tuesday that he only wants to have a “conversation” about the weapons sale.
“What we wanted to do is to have a dialogue and conversation,” Meeks said. “We’re going to have a meeting with the administration tomorrow where the issues and the questions that one may have will be able to be asked, and that was the purpose of considering the letter.”
While some progressives took a strong stance against the arms deal, like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the idea that the US shouldn’t arm Israel or that it could leverage aid is still a super-minority view in Congress, as most lawmakers are staunch supporters of Israel.
The bulk of the $735 million deal is for Boeing-made Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), which can convert unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions. On Saturday, Israel bombed a building in Gaza that housed offices for several media outlets, including The Associated Press, Al Jazeera, and Middle East Eye. Analysis of the footage of the airstrikes found the Israelis used munitions from the same family of JDAMs that are included in the $735 weapons package.
So far, Israel’s latest onslaught in Gaza has killed at least 217 Palestinians, including 63 children. The Biden administration has failed to condemn the Israeli killing of Palestinian children and is not pressuring Israel to end the bombing campaign.
I’m reasonably sure this is a result of members of Congress being given a phone call by the likes of AIPAC which gave them their marching orders. When Congressional members hear their gravy train of ‘donations’ might be in danger, we see how quickly they fall back in line.
“… the likes of AIPAC….” and/or Boeing.
You speak of the “carrot”, but there is also the “stick”. Very few people don’t have some kind of skeleton in their closet. Something illegal, immoral, or just plain ugly. Even if Politician Dem/Rep is personally clean, there is his family to consider. Momma spent some years as hooker before marrying Dad? Younger brother’s kinky sex/drug history? The time Sister sent out autographed images of herself sitting on the copy machine.
If none of those existed, then Epstein (or one of his associates) will CREATE something. How many men can resist an incredibly beautiful and cooperative young woman who appears in their life. That their encounters were recorded by hidden cameras, and the young woman was actually 15 at the time; that’s a problem for Mr. Politician. He is going to do whatever he is told to do.
This, like almost nothing else (not Trump, the Bush/Cheney WMD lie, or John Yoo’s Torture Memo, ….) is a perfect measure of the depth of corruption and cowardice of our institutions.
Is it illogical to expect a bipartisan bill to support Israel’s war on the Palestinians soon? Sorry, I meant to say, “Israel has the right to defend itself.” They may want to borrow the “Operation Iraqi Freedom” title and call it, “Operation Palestinian freedom.” This is when they free Palestinians from their daily troubles and burry them in their peaceful and safe graves under their destroyed homes.
If they hadn’t already been evicted from those homes.
With all this attention-to-detail making things so much better, why don’t we (the United States) accelerate conflict with Ukraine & Russia also?