The Biden administration has notified Congress that it intends to move forward with a weapons package for Israel worth over $1 billion as Israeli tanks are pushing further into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
The arms package, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, includes $700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles, and $60 million in mortar rounds.
The arms could take years to deliver, but the deal demonstrates the US’s long-term commitment to arming Israel despite President Biden’s warning that he could stop supplying certain types of weapons if Israel launches a major attack on “population centers” in Rafah. It also shows Israel that any tank munitions it uses in Rafah will be replenished. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Israeli tanks had entered residential districts in eastern Rafah.
While the US says it put a hold on one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Monday that the US was still committed to Israel and would make sure it received all of the $17 billion in new military aid that was recently approved by Congres. “We are continuing to send military assistance, and we will ensure that Israel receives the full amount provided in the supplemental. We have paused a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs because we do not believe they should be dropped in densely populated cities. We are talking to the Israeli government about this,” he said.
Initial reports about the delayed bomb shipment said a pause was also put on a shipment of 500-pound bombs, but US officials are now only mentioning the 2,000-pound bombs. When asked to clarify if there was a hold on both, the State Department pointed Antiwar.com to the above statement from Sullivan.
Sullivan also made clear that Israel’s push into Rafah still hasn’t crossed Biden’s red line, if one exists at all. “We still believe it would be a mistake to launch a major military operation into the heart of Rafah that would put huge numbers of civilians at risk without a clear strategic gain. The president was clear he would not supply certain offensive weapons for such an operation, were it to occur. It has not yet occurred,” he said.
Before Israel launched its US-approved operation to capture the Rafah border crossing last week, it was estimated that the city was packed with about 1.4 million civilians. The UN said on Tuesday that about 450,000 Palestinians have been driven out of the city so far and are warning that there’s nowhere safe for them to go. The Israeli operation has also cut off aid deliveries through the vital Rafah border crossing, adding to the starvation blockade on the Strip.
Apparently the announcement by Biden to hold up weapons shipments was purely performative campaign sloganeering for the swing states. I never believed a word of it.
Nothing coming out of that Generation Radio mouth should be taken seriously anyways.
kudos for using the word performative in a sentence
That is a cool word and I believe he used it correctly.
He’s said in multiple speeches that he’s a lifelong Zionist, and that nothing Israel could do would stop the flow of weapons.
After all, what’s a few Crimes Against Humanity among friends?
There is a damning article in the British newspaper “The Independent” entitled, “Joe Biden has Done More than Arm Israel. His Own Official See Him as Complicit in Gaza’s Devastating Famine.” This is an outrageous expose’ on just how depraved a cult of inhumanity and white supremacy these people are both in Israel and the US.
How do you define “white”? Do you have a special pigment scale? Are Israeli soldiers of Ethiopian descent now white by association? Are Arab people non-white? Are Israel’s enemies humane and see people who happen to be of Jewish descent as equals? Is “from the River to the Sea”a “cult”
Nothing short of a divine intervention or ancient aliens for that matter will change the fate of those Palestinians.
Ancient aliens never existed, but the Palestinians have a few real allies. We could see a huge rebuilding effort in Gaza to give them shelter and necessities. It seems unlikely, but we’re witnessing real efforts, controlled opposition and real opposition.
some of those ancient humans had green skin.
maybe they were related to the Grinch.
i wonder how that relates to the term blue-bloods.
The best way for the fate of the people in Gaza to improve is for Hamas to surrendered. The longer they fight the more people in Gaza will die. That is a fact of urban combat.
And if Hamas doesn’t surrender then Israel can continue with the genocide while the morons of the world, you, continue to blame their brutality on someone else.
And morons like you have no understanding of history of wars. Just like both Japan and Germany when the war was lost by the fall of 1944, they kept fighting and dying. Hamas keeps on fighting and people of Gaza keep dying.
Do you expect Israel to just quit and go home? Do expect Israel not to use its big weapons and fight hand to hand? That is not going to happen.
No actually I wish they would all move to Idaho or Montana.
An interesting wish. Two of USA most stunning states.
I understand what an ongoing genocide looks like. You can twist yourself into a pretzel trying to justify said genocide, but it’s still a genocide. And I EXPECT Israel to continue with the genocide because they have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that their brutal terroristic acts have no limits.
A thought for any President of the US: This should be an impeachable offense. Do the inhumane crime; Do the Time.
The uniparty is all in.
” This should be an impeachable offense” It is not.
Why isn’t it? He’s breaking US and International law.
The ‘Rule of Law’ doesn’t apply to the U.S. and Israel. When it’s all said and done, the U.S. and Israel will be isolated by most of the world. NATO will be disbanded as many nations will move into the BRICS coalition and exit ‘Sanction Nation’ and its master Israel.
NATO will not disband with people like Putin running Russia.
Putin is not the enemy. The US Government is.
Nuts.
Check back in a year after Europe realizes they went along with the U.S. plan to destroy Russia and have only hurt themselves in the process.
What US law has he broken? International law?
This from the AP:
The Biden administration said Friday that Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in Gaza likely violated international humanitarian law but that wartime conditions prevented U.S. officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes.
The finding of “reasonable” evidence to conclude that the U.S. ally had breached international law protecting civilians in the way it conducted its war against Hamas was the strongest statement that the Biden administration has yet made on the matter. It was released in a summary of a report being delivered to Congress on Friday.
They admit to breaking the law and then come up with this doozy:
that wartime conditions prevented U.S. officials from determining that for certain in specific airstrikes
This on US law:
Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, who filed the lawsuit Monday with a Washington DC court, said the United States has given Israel an estimated $234 billion in foreign aid since Congress in 1976 passed the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, with its stipulation regarding countries that did not sign the NPT, according to Courthouse News.
So, we’ve been breaking the US law since 1976.
And this:
Joe Biden has done more than arm Israel. Leaked documents reveal his own officials see him as complicit in Gaza’s devastating famine
An investigation by The Independent uncovers the missteps, missed opportunities and political choices made by the Biden administration that allowed a famine to take hold in northern Gaza. With access to leaked documents, testimony from current and former officials and voices from Gaza, it paints a damning picture of an entirely preventable catastrophe.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/gaza-famine-biden-israel-hamas-b2542961.html
Grant has tried that in the past and has failed. The last time was August 2016. It will fail again.
Of course it will fail. That doesn’t mean the law wasn’t broken. It was. And so was International law.
Especially with that dullard Speaker Johnson sitting through Biden’s speech at the Holocaust memorial event. They are all bought and paid for, enough with voting in career politicians.
Think of the poor saps who entered Israel to do evil on Oct 7-were they not brainwashed to kill,and then abandoned?
Tim:
Try thinking outside the box, for a bit. I did, in fact, use the word “should”.
“should” OK. Good so you admit that it is not an impeachable offensive.
It is, the Leahy Law prohibits supplying weapons to parties involved in Crimes Against Humanity. If the Rethugs actually wanted to impeach Biden for something real they could easily do it, which just makes it even more blatant that it’s just ‘Performance Politics’.
It does not appear that the will or the guts to stop the death train in our Congress is going to materialize. Too many of our elected officials from POTUS down to the last lowly backbencher have their greedy little hands out to AIPAC and the Defense{sic} Companies. Until this changes and it won’t until rapacious Capitalism and White Supremacy are overturned and overcome the citizens of the US and other countries are going to suffer economically and socially while the MIC rules over everything and everybody.
It’s largely about the losing game in hegemony.
US funding for Israel to date: 300 Billion bucks. What has it accomplished, in totality?………………………………………………?!
good job dear
Killed a bunch of people?
35,000 killed, 79,000 wounded, 11,000 missing (Palestine Chronicle, May 15, 2024)
How many Hamas troops in that list?
Hamas is too busy to check out Tim.
But not too busy to count civilians deaths. Remember these numbers, as reported many times, come from Hamas run health agency.
And that means they’re inaccurate? 2.3 million people living on 140 square miles of land with 25,000 tons of bombs dropped on them in the first 6 weeks of this “war” and you think those numbers are fudged? Why not(/s). And never mind that 33% of the population was already “food insecure” and 96% of their water was contaminated before Oct 7th and the aid has been cut to a fraction of what was getting before Oct 7th. The humanitarian crises is just an exaggeration too, right? Once more, you prove what a despicable human being you truly are.
We have helped create the Beast of then East.The damage is just starting.
“What has it accomplished, in totality?” A homeland for the Jewish people.
Apparently the Jewish people aren’t that big a fan of the “homeland” idea, since most of them decline to live there.
Apparently the Jewish people aren’t that big a fan of the “homeland” idea, since most of them decline to live there.
It’s the least safe place to live.
That danger will increase if they screw with Iran. This time they won’t be warned.
Not even close.
Helluva lot safer in NY.
The safest place for a Jewish person these days is Iran.
( reflect on that )
I’m still going with NY.
That is true. But it a homeland to the Jewish who get kicked out of other countries.
Death, misery, starvation, poverty, and chaos. Mission Accomplished!
This is obscene, when you add the billions sent to the Cocaine Dwarf in Ukraine the total will be up to a trillion before too long. The country can’t afford four more years of Biden monopoly money.
Slovakia PM shot, fighting ‘life-threatening’ injuries
Prime Minister Robert Fico was on Wednesday shot multiple times and rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries after a cabinet meeting, officials said, in an attack condemned by EU chiefs.
Fico, a populist leader accused of being Kremlin-friendly, has been prime minister since last year.
“Today, after the government meeting in Handlova, there was an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, Robert Fico”, the government said in a post on social media.~AFP
See-eye-ay?
It would not be the first or last. The list is long and loved.
@RepThomasMassie
Approximately 1% of Gaza’s CIVILIAN population has been wiped out by Israel in 7 months.
We should not fund this war.
[1% is between Israel’s 0.7% and Gaza’s 1.5% official claims.
1% in 7 months is not exactly “genocide” level is it? And when one removes the dead Hamas fighters from that number, it is closer to 0.7% civilian losses.
1% is the estimate for CIVILIANS, including at least 15,000 children and babies. It is all being meticulously documented for future generations to study in courses on genocide.
So who is counting the Hamas losses? And again, not exactly “genocide” level losses is it? In Battle of Berlin, 4% of civilian population died in just two weeks of fighting. No one called out the Russian for genocide in that battle.
The Rafah will be the Final Failure of Israel operation in Gaza
The Gaza Strip is only 141 square miles. 7 months, something like 90 thousand bombs.
If 25,000 civilians have died in bombing (35,000-10,000 Hamas troops); 25,000 dead per 90,000 bombs equals about 1 person dead for each 4 bombs. Not exactly the deadly weapons people claimed them to be.
So not a genocide – just mass murder and ethnics cleansing ?
Well at least you understand it is not genocide. Now for ethnics cleaning, what percentage of the population was driven out of Gaza into other countries? Oh that would be zero.
The ICJ calls it a plausible genocide.
90% of the population has been displaced and driven from one area to the next. The fact that the ethnic cleansing hasn’t been completed doesn’t mean it is not ongoing. Same with the famine. But I forgot how fucking stupid you are.
Now it’s just a matter of them using “lots” of bombs to do their ongoing genocide so that makes it less deadly. More brilliance.
4 minutes of raw combat footage showing what the IDF faces. It’s the most powerful example of the military situation I‘ve seen.
https://twitter.com/PalestineChron/status/1790483203200836088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1790483203200836088%7Ctwgr%5E1f21e6a08f998aaa4bba5ec836d4c5d215166f25%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.palestinechronicle.com%2Fal-qassam-kills-12-occupation-soldiers-as-army-retreats-from-zaytoun-breaking%2F
“The arms could take years to deliver” Israel won’t be around to receive them. The Axis is bleeding the US and Israel of weapons, the same strategy as Russia’s in Ukraine, and is willing to accept the casualties in Gaza if the end result is the elimination of Israel from Palestine and the elimination of the US from the Middle East. That will happen.
May the Lord of Truth and justice smile on your words.
Biden’s administration is a menace threatening the survival of the entire planet.
I knew that before Oct 7th.
Biden has more control over these weapons, and how Israel uses them, than he is letting on.
The US not only provides the JDAM and Small Diameter Glide Bombs to Israel, but it also allows Israel to use the military grade GPS guidance system for those weapons. The GPS satellite system has both a civilian and military signal. As I understand it, the military grade signal can only be used by those who we give permission to. And, it can be turned on or off over certain geographic areas.
Thus, Biden has more control over these weapons, and how Israel uses them, than he is letting on. Biden is just pretending to try to stop Israel’s slaughter. He is playing both sides, hoping that he can fool enough people to get re-elected.
The US could have shut down, or threatened to shut down, the military grade GPS signals over Israel and Gaza 7 months ago. This would make all of Israel’s JDAM’s and Small diameter glide bombs unusable, forcing Israel to fight Hamas on the ground, block by block. And Israel wouldn’t dare to do that because of the casualties it would suffer.
“We still believe it would be a mistake to launch a major military operation into the heart of Rafah that would put huge numbers of civilians at risk without a clear strategic gain. The president was clear he would not supply certain offensive weapons for such an operation, were it to occur. It has not yet occurred,” he said.
But ongoing smaller military operations don’t cross the “redline”. So, Israel, as long as you don’t kill them all at once, we’re good. But, if you do decide to kick it up a notch, we’re good with that too but you’ll still have to do it without those 2000 lb. pounds. We do have limits. Here’s a hint, four 500 lb. bombs will do the same as one 2000 lb. bomb.
Plus, they’ve already stated that they’re stocked up from previous shipments.
So-release all hostages for a complete Israeli pull out from Gaza. End the deaths and suffering;perhaps cooler heads would prevail.
Tell that to Netanyahu. Or any of the long list of nutjobs he had to get into bed with to come to power.
Israel can solve ALL their problems by just accepting Christ now.
See how easy that is?! I just helped create peace!
How the USA and Israel have treated the Palestinians these past 70 years is SHAMEFUL and anyone with a modicum of knowledge about Israel vs. Palestine probably wonders why an “October 7” didn’t happen sooner! Living under Israeli military occupation these past 70 years is like an “October 7” EVERY DAY!
Good thing we don’t need that money for anything important in America like schools or roads. I guess this is what happens when supports of a foreign government buy off your leaders.