Despite the soaring civilian deaths in Gaza, the Biden administration is not considering using any of the leverage it has over Israel to get the Israeli military to change its tactics, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
US officials say they’re expressing concern privately and claim Israel is listening, but the current campaign in south Gaza, where there are millions of displaced civilians, is no less brutal than Israeli operations in the north.
The US has pointed to Israel allowing more aid trucks to enter Gaza as proof that Israel is listening. But the UN’s top relief official, Martin Griffiths, has said the situation in south Gaza is “apocalyptic” and ending any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations.
Gaza’s Health Ministry has said nearly 16,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 70% being women and children. The mass slaughter of civilians has not caused the Biden administration to rethink support for the war, and the Reuters report said the US is “stopping well short” of measures that would force Israel to listen to concerns about civilian casualties, such as restricting military aid.
Instead, US officials have maintained US military aid to Israel is unconditional. The support has involved near-daily weapons shipments, including thousands of massive bombs, and the deployment of more American firepower to the region to “deter” regional actors from entering the war.
One US official claimed to Reuters that reducing military support for the onslaught would carry risks. “You start lessening aid to Israel, you start encouraging other parties to come into the conflict, you weaken the deterrence effect, and you encourage Israel’s other enemies,” the official said.
Israeli officials have made clear they aren’t feeling any pressure to change their tactics. “I must admit I sense that the prime minister feels zero pressure, and that we will do whatever it takes to achieve our military goals,” said Ophir Falk, a foreign policy advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
From MOA:
Israel’s dependence on the United States was stated bluntly by retired IDF Maj. General Yitzhak Brick in an interview earlier this week.
“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period
The quote is from this story on the aggressively pro-Zionist “Jewish News Syndicate” site:
Biden is the primary obstacle to Israeli victory
Yes. But he’s not obstructing a thing. And there’s a reason why I credited MOA v the site. The context, overall of what is happening.
I didn’t suggest that you shouldn’t cite MoA. And I certainly don’t think the JNS writer’s claim makes sense. The JNS article is, however, the actual source of the quote, and the article provides interesting insight into the way some uber-Zionists view Biden’s statements and behavior in this horror show.
And I’m a bit grumpy about the sloppy non-attribution, misattribution, and failures to cite sources that are prevalent around here. No one has to do what I ask them to do, of course, but I’m liable to keep asking.
I largely post direct links. But enjoy the scold.
I’m sorry that you — along with others here — think of reminders like mine as mere scolding. There’s a reason that citation and attribution are considered important in exchanges such as the ones we’re engaged in here — and it’s an obviously-important reason.
You can’t quit.
Now, now…that wasn’t so much a scold as a whiney remonstrance.
It’s hilarious since the most criticism I receive is about posting links. But schoolmarm speaks!
“Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States.”
I am admittedly ignorant…but it is not at all self evident to me that this is true.
The US may provide Israel with most of its weapons…but surely that is a part of the ‘special relationship’ that financially benefits US weapons makers.
But Israel is a rich country – unlike Ukraine, not purely dependent on US weapons. Surely, it could and would simply buy weapons elsewhere if not from the US.
Therefore, rather, it seems to me that what the US military relationship with Israel mainly does is to provide political cover for Israel’s historic crimes: the weapons are the tangible form, the token of US unconditional support for Israel’s violent apartheid oppression of Palestinians:
ie, the weapons declare, ‘We recognize Israel’s security needs, we pledge to be guarantors of its security, and we share Israel’s political interpretation of its need for those weapons.’
This is a vast over-simplification. All Biden need to is order the battle groups in the Med & Red to turn around.
“All Biden need to is order the battle groups in the Med & Red to turn around.”
A good point – though I’d still argue ‘arms to Israel’ does what I said, I failed to think of greater ‘region-wide’ US military action.
There’s the even larger point: Washington is now the only ‘friend’ she has. Israel has become the “Typhoid Mary” of international affairs. In the current times there is no alternative source of weaponry.
US battle groups are their to dissuade Israel from unleashing its nukes,and keep sea lanes open.Or perhaps you would like to pay $10 a gallon for gasoline.
Money laundering too, as in all wars, and as I think Robert inferred, it’s desperation to keep empire in the ME.
Thank you, Genocide Joe, for stories like this: https://popularresistance.org/there-were-bodies-everywhere-one-familys-harrowing-journey-out-of-gaza-city/
‘Horrific Scenes, Enough To Make A Stone Cry.’
Says it all.
Should university administrators allow speech like this on their campuses or should this be outlawed and punished in the US?:
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1732443829356097782?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Nothing more dangerous than being a billionaire hedge fund manager that is supportive of Israel:
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1732742109185105940?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
The House voted that to be anti-Zionist is to be antisemitic. The deck is stacked against the Palestinians. And, oh,Israel wants to have “open-ended” occupation of Gaza. We are watching, in real time, a people being rubbed out, then forgotten. G-d Bless America, huh.
The Hamas pogrom is being responded to.
Israel is so nice. They’ll stop killing Palestinians eventually when there are no more Palestinians. …No. I’m just repeating what they’re actually saying.
Israel’s Gaza onslaught is the Dahiya Doctrine in practice, kill as many of your enemies civilians as you can and hope your enemy loses their will to fight.
No more guns and bombs to kill people? What is this Chiristmas or something?
One US official claimed to Reuters that reducing military support for the onslaught would carry risks. “You start lessening aid to Israel, you start encouraging other parties to come into the conflict, you weaken the deterrence effect, and you encourage Israel’s other enemies,” the official said
Can’t have that. Might end up at a table someplace talking peace.
That would certainly be the end times for the cold warriors infesting our government.
They’ve made a calculation that they can afford to piss off anyone with any sense of decency by siding with the war criminals.
This WH is useless. Nothing of value to humankind is going to come from it.
Looks like the comment contributor Jake can’t even defend what’s going on.
We’re accomplices to genocide.. We’ve gone down a rung, now we’re just stooges.
I wonder what Biden’s answer is going to be when St Peter questions him on this. “You could have stopped the genocide of the Palestinians with one phone call- why didn’t you make that call?” Better start getting fitted for an asbestos suit, buddy.
Saying one thing (lip service to human rights) while doing another (supplying unlimited and mass casualty arms) is, in the famous words of a previous duplicitous presidential candidate, “You need a public and private position on issues” bullshit.