The White House said in a statement on Thursday that the US and Israel have a “shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah,’ the southern Gaza city that’s packed with over 1 million Palestinian civilians.
The statement came following talks between US and Israeli officials that covered Iran’s reprisal attack on Israel and Israeli plans to invade Rafah. The US has expressed “concerns” about the potential assault because it will cause mass civilian casualties but appears to ultimately support the idea of Israel attacking the city.
The talks were led by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and, on the Israel side, Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer and National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi.
“The two sides agreed on the shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah. US participants expressed concerns with various courses of action in Rafah, and Israeli participants agreed to take these concerns into account and to have further follow up discussions,” the White House said.
The same officials discussed Rafah on April 1, and the White House released a nearly identical readout. After the first round of talks, US officials said that Israel has not presented any kind of plan to account for the more than 1 million civilians in Rafah.
Israeli sources told CNN that Iran’s attack on Israel actually delayed Israel’s plan to attack Rafah. They said the Israeli Air Force was set to drop leaflets on Rafah on Monday to tell the civilians in the city that an assault was coming, but the plans were called off. The fact that Israel was about to take that action shows that the US is not putting any significant pressure on Israel, such as threatening to cut off military aid if it goes through with the invasion.
The US has continued to provide unconditional military aid and diplomatic cover to back the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza. The Health Ministry in Gaza said on Thursday that at least have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 33,970 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, a number that doesn’t take into account the thousands of Palestinians who are missing and presumed dead under the rubble.
Taking into account deaths caused by starvation and disease, experts are warning the death toll will top 100,000 by August if conditions don’t change and that it will be higher than 120,000 if there is a military escalation, such as an Israeli invasion of Rafah.
America is not a democratic republic. It is ruled by deep state bureaucrats, politicians, mediacrats, other entrenched crats. The military does what it always does: get new tech (expensive) and break things. And people. The American population clearly does not support this stupidity but we/it apparently is standing locked outside the stop secret lab in which the poison brew has been concocted.
I dunno. The media manufactures consent. I meet many who support Israel somewhat still.
Maybe democracy is rule by those who control the mass media.
Right wing “Christians” overwhelmingly support Israel; in social media they all have the Star of David as their Facebook Icon with the words “I Stand With Israel” written on it. And there’s a powerful, well monied and large number of right wing “Christians” in this country. They believe Israel should have every square inch of land in the Middle East because that will fulfill prophecy as described in the Bible and allow them to have their Armageddon and float up into the skies with their maker. Religion, as always, is the problem.
But it’s Christian’s who are tricked. I guess it doesn’t matter whether they are tricked.
I’m not sure if it’s that they are tricked as much as they are arrogant and callous enough to believe their faith supersedes human rights. Religion begets cruelty. Like Gandhi said: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Many things beget cruelty, and the Bible says they’re wrong.
Communist SU, in the faith of a godless ideology, did bad things. Godless France too.
Agreed. Many things do beget cruelty. I guess the part that upsets me is when people use religion to perpetuate their cruelty when their religion calls on them to be the very opposite.
I can’t go to church anymore. The hypocrisy makes me sick to my stomach.
Keep in mind that religion and nationalism are often what enable oppressed peoples to unite against oppression.
And belief in an immortal soul is often what founds ethics, which tells us each human has an immortal soul and thus value.
It’s not. It’s about imperialism and hegemony.
That Christians or others bought into it for religious meaning is no different than others who are secular buying into it for tribal reasons under propaganda.
Biden is not (technically) rightwing and is a staunch Zionist who supports genocide.
Stop dividing to conquer.
I don’t mean to divide anything. But I also believe in calling a spade a spade. Yes of course most all politicians in this country are beholden to Israel because they are corrupted by AIPAC money as well as MIC money. And Biden is a perfect example. But the intense lobbying and financial support of Israel comes from the religious Right in this country. They are a huge problem. Here are some notes from Tucker Carlson’s interview with the Palestinian Christian Minister from Bethlehem:
Tucker: “Why are self-professed Christians sending money to oppress Christians in the middle east?”
Palestinian Christian Minister: “That’s the sad irony. A lot of the money that comes from churches, even before the war, goes not to just the Israeli Military but also to the building of Settlements on land confiscated from Palestinians including Palestinian Christian families. None of their money goes to humanitarian causes or to the causes for peace.”
He said preachers in these churches are lobbying even in their sermons for turning Gaza into a parking lot. How is this Christian when they are calling for this violence?
He says he wishes that these religious leaders realize how extremely damaging their position, their lobbying and their money is to the existence of the people in the Middle East including the Christian populations. He says they’ve always had very serious problems with American Foreign Policy and the religious Right’s support of that foreign policy when it comes to Palestine and Israel.
Tucker: “If you wake up in the morning and decide your Christian faith requires you to support a foreign government blowing up churches and killing Christians, I think you’ve lost the point.”
Palestinian Christian Pastor: “My message to Christian leaders is that there is a very brutal war taking place in Gaza, a war that is a genocide because it is a war that is even using starvation as a means, and fellow Christians are suffering because of that war. It’s time that Christian leaders [in America] recognize that war is not the way; it would be an invitation to listen, to learn and avoid very shallow and simplistic perspectives that are not based on scripture itself but are more based on political equations.”
That’s not quantitative. I’m sure some do, but it is, no doubt, eclipsed by the lobbying of AIPAC. I’m glad when anyone presents the realities for Palestinians. But the fact is that the US gov’t and state TV has been lying for almost a century about circumstances there, making it sound “complicated”, with “both sides” as the problem, and Israel relying on “antisemitism” and victimhood of the Holocaust as a cudgel. Then you have a secular leader of Netanyahu using biblical terms as justification.
The problem is propaganda, all the way around. The same for Ukraine. The same for all the wars and proxy wars the US instigates, supports and perpetrates. To be abundantly clear, I have never seen more blood lust and warmongering than that of Democrats for the proxy war in Ukraine, driven by fairytale narratives of Russiagate. That is not unlike religious faith, no matter how much contrary evidence is presented, it is driven by belief.
Belief is driven by repetition, lack of truth in msm and an intentional separation of the public so that they can never form a real majority.
Yes Americans are getting propagandized from all sides. I wish they could see through the lies. From a personal standpoint it just bothers me that people use religion (which calls for peace) to support war and to support cruelty. The hypocrisy of that is stunning.
And yes i agree: the Democrats are extreme warmongers; as you said their bloodlust for Ukraine also sickens me to my core.
That’s why a purer form of democracy almost invariably degenerates into the reverse in some way. The population eventually votes in people who do their thinking for them, relieving them of the responsibility of governing themselves. Defeating the purpose of democracy. As an example, how long did it take for the French to have an Emperor after the French Revolution? The all-pervasive mass media of today accelerates the process.
Ironically, in the US, the Declaration of Independence was really just a propaganda statement. Jefferson was at one point going to blame the King for slavery in it, which is absurd.
Now, Americans are told it’s some quasi religious document.
One more reason I’m rooting for Biden to lose.
I don’t think Trump will be much better. He is more interested in money then power.We know what Biden is. I despise Trump but he is a better bet if you don’t care about rights being taken away meassured against the certainty of doom with Biden.
Rights? Like the right to privacy? Free speech? The right to assembly and dissent? Those are disintegrating now.
For women, the right to bodily autonomy, freedom, liberty and self-determination without Governmental intrusion to destroy any of those.
Stop caring only about one group.
I thought she was adding to what you were saying. I could be wrong.
Maybe. But we can’t pretend “if we only got rid of “ …Trump, the Christians, the blah blah fill in blank, everything would be fine.
I agree with you; everything would not be fine. Both parties are horrible warmongers and both parties are taking away our rights.
The loss of privacy effects all people, as does censorship, the abandonment of a free independent press, free speech and the right to assembly.
How far do you think individual causes will go without those freedoms?
Israel and the donor class owns DC might share this goal. The rest of us not so much.
I somewhat expect Jews will abandon Israel soon. If a Jew does something bad in the UK or Soviet Union, the action often isn’t associated with Jews.
However, Israel is.
“Let there be Peace on Earth and let it begin with me. With every step I take, a gift that was meant to be…”
Well said fake peace activist supporter of dictators.
Well said.
You may get a job offer to be a kremlin troll one day. Keep it up.
And who will be held responsible for this human tragedy?…
No one. They’ll just die of old age, and their children will deny responsibility.
“The two sides agreed on the shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah. US participants expressed concerns with various courses of action in Rafah, and Israeli participants agreed to take these concerns into account and to have further follow up discussions,” the White House said.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me 6000 times, shame on me.
The objective by the Zionist Israelis is GENOCIDE, as they have stated over and over again. So the USA has sworn allegiance to do the bidding of the Zionist Israelis, which means supporting the GENOCIDE of Palestinians. There is NO other way to look at what the leaders of both countries are doing, which is slaughtering, raping, assaulting, murdering, torturing, starving, DEFENSELESS Humans. Where is the ICC, where is the ICJ, where are the so called “Democracies”, WHERE?
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/10/12/hamass-attack-was-the-bloodiest-in-israels-history
The fools rush in not knowing that most of Hamas members are already out of Rafah…!
“Eliminate Al Qaeda from Iraq”
“Destroy the Taliban in Afghanistan”
“Defeat Hamas in Gaza”
How they love these unattainable goals! Best excuse for endless wars.