The US is reported to have made more than 100 weapons sales to Israel, including thousands of bombs, since the start of the war in Gaza, but the deliveries escaped congressional oversight because each transaction was under the dollar amount requiring approval.
“This doesn’t just seem like an attempt to avoid technical compliance with US arms export law, it’s an extremely troubling way to avoid transparency and accountability on a high-profile issue,” Ari Tolany, director of the security assistance monitor at the Centre for International Policy thinktank, said.
She added that, in exploiting the loophole, the Biden administration was following the steps of its predecessor. “They’re very much borrowing from the Trump playbook to dodge congressional oversight,” Tolany said.
In defending its continued arms sales to Israel, despite ever more public misgivings about its conduct of the Gaza war, the administration has argued that they are part of the US’s basic commitment to Israel’s self defence.
And Biden is not helping israel “finish the problem”?
Did you even read the post? Aside from trying to gaslight people into thinking he changed something, Biden is still supporting israel and Netanyahu as hard as he did on day1.
Biden’s told netanyahu he and the US will not support an extended war, a revised position from when this latest invasion began.
Biden is not helping netanyahu finish the problem. And he certainly didn’t say that netanyahu should finish the problem, like Trump did.
Yet they just vetoed another ceasefire in the UN out of support for Israel. On top of selling more weapons to Israel. The US is supporting this genocide both militarily with weapon sales and internationally with Veto power in the UN.
I know it seems like a long time to a lot of you, but this is not a four-month war tolerated by Biden. This is a 70-year long genocide supported by every us president since Israel was founded.
Waiting four months for Biden to tell netanyahu Biden does not support an extended war and explicitly state that the US and the Biden administration support a two-state solution is a rapid policy reversal in the context of these atrocities happening for 800 months without any public protest until a few months ago.
US became the Major Supporter for Israel around 1967 when Israel launched the 1967 war to occupy the West Bank and Gaza. The Two-State Solution has had US support for a long time, and has been wielded by Israel to continue de facto annexing/settling of the West Bank and maintain an Apartheid State under the guise of Security. As a result, a Two-State Solution is no longer viable as it has been a One-State reality for decades.
Your tone is aggressively confrontational, but you’re agreeing with what I explained to you in the previous comment.
Thanks.
I disagree with your idea of rapid policy reversal or that Biden has changed his support (anymore than empty rhetoric), but for the most part we agree. I didn’t intend any confrontational tone, but I like providing sources to help spread awareness
Sources are important, as is context.
Two forms of contexts are important here: 1) rational historical context and 2) influential and active diplomatic context
1)Withholding weapons from one of the longest active allies of the US is an unreasonable expectation in such a short time frame immediately following such a complex terrorist attack and more than half a century of active mutual defense between the US and Israel.
The short time frame is especially important here as a ties into context two, as the US is an indirect party to this conflict and has to ascertain and verify intelligence before making any sort of major policy decision.
He’s practically proven over 16 years that he has no problem with Palestinian colonization, invasion and executions by the IDF, and now with Oct. 7th has a huge excuse that for at least a month was globally and popularly supported.
The defence ministry of Israel stated that Palestinians are animals and Israel is behaving accordingly.
Israel is a militarized state with mandatory military service and the Israeli civilian population widely abohors Palestinians as much as the government and military do.
So you have an executive branch, the military, and most of the general population with more than enough weapons from dozens of countries willing to kill literally every palestinian from dozens of countries constantly flowing in and a legacy of global popular support, being directed by a dictator to respond violently to an admittedly horrific terrorist attack.
How can you stop them?
You want Biden and the US, who is not a direct party to this conflict, to immediately break off the 70-year alliance and stop sending them weapons?
Israel has plenty of other weapons and plenty of other countries supplying weapons.
The us cutting funding and weapons won’t stop Israel pursuing this genocide, but it will remove any American influence in Israeli policy and severely damage America’s practical policy-making diplomatic influence and reputation.
Now think about the steps that have been taken so far.
For a month following the oct. 7 attack, the entire world acted as they have always done, saying they stand with Israel and darn those evil hamas terrorists.
Then it’s repeatedly irrefutably proven and documented in real time that Israel is lying about many military justifications, is severely prejudiced against Palestinians and is continuing a 70 year long policy of illegal colonization and genocide.
Second month occurs, Biden says that they still stand with Palestine, but the rhetoric is obviously chilled.
January comes up, netanyahu says that they’re going to completely demilitarize Palestine and Palestinians will not ever have a country, shows everybody a map without Palestine on it at all.
Biden says the US supports a two-state solution.
Netanyahu says that this war will continue for years, biden tells him that the US won’t support an extended war.
We come to February, last month, the Biden administration sends aid be given to Gaza despite Israel’s insistence that no aid be given, and asks the pentagon to come up with land, sea and air aid packages for Palestine.
Biden holds talks with a political opponent of netanyahu, Benny gantz.
Israeli settlers make a new push to illegally colonized Palestinian land, so Biden enacts specific sanctions against those settlerd, financially and travel based.
Then, all of a sudden after these measures that contradict and directly circumvent netanyahu by supporting and even dropping aid directly to Palestinians, israel is suddenly ready for a ceasefire.
If the biden administration was as inactive as people who don’t care about the full story assume, that ceasefire deal would not have been possible.
There’s no practical reason for them to stop. They have enough weapons and technology and funding to, as trump encouraged them to do “finish the problem”.
But Biden made sure of the facts, then progressively contradicted specific stated policies of netanyahu, enactrf sanctions against Israeli settlers, held talks with a political rival of netanyahu, then directly supported Palestinians by providing aid.
These are clear escalating steps in diplomatically convincing Israel to stand down that retain American international influence, and Israel has already agreed to a ceasefire.
Israel was pressured with multiple actions, not empty rhetoric, and that pressure worked and is still working.
No multiple US presidents shut down israel’s Genocides when they became too extreme. Even Rebublicans like Bush
And that was with a far lower amount of civilians being brutally massacared by israel. What Netanyahu is doing right now is the most extreme Genocide in Palestinian history since at least 1900.
And Biden is secretly giving Netanyahu more weapons instead of putting pressure on them.
In small skirmishes rather than what can be called a war, decades ago when the worried was fort years younger.
Context.
Stopping one action vs. dropping a full -on war after 90 percent of the story had been written is completely different.
Biden isn’t “secretly” doing weapons or you wouldn’t know about it. This isn’t Iran Contra and your comparison is absurd, this is direct military aid he’s authorized to make.
Did you read this post? What?
Yes, but I don’t immediately incorporate opinions into every fiber of my being.
I tried to rationally look at the thing from different angles instead, and find the one that Occam and political context agree with.
Unbeatable argument
Dude it’s been four months. The US is already supporting an extended “war” (Genocide).
Because Biden, as we can read in this post, has been quietly giving Netanyahu the bombs that make this extended “war” (Genocide) possible.
Biden set like 500 red lines and Netanyahu violated all of them. And Biden keeps sending weapons. Do people have severe dementia when it comes to Biden and israel?
I know it seems like a long time to a lot of you, but this is not a four-month war tolerated by Biden. This is a 70-year long genocide supported by every us president since Israel was founded.
Waiting four months for Biden to tell netanyahu Biden does not support an extended war and explicitly state that the US and the Biden administration support a two-state solution is a rapid policy reversal in the context of these atrocities happening for 800 months without any public protest until a few months ago.
Which is a lie for the benefit of other people. Both Biden and Netanyahu knows that.
Nope. The public messaging might have changed, but as the article demonstrates, what he and his government are actually DOING hasn’t.
That’s just flat out false. He might not say so in public, but his support for the genocidal apartheid regime is as unwavering as ever.
He may not have said it in public, but he’s secretly helping Netanyahu towards that goal nonetheless. To still pretend otherwise is wilfully ignorant at best and intentionally gaslighting at worst.
Your first point is entirely wrong, and you have no supporting evidence.
Your second point is entirely wrong, and all the supporting evidence goes against you. Not sure why you even tried that one.
Your third point is obviously false as well since Biden is directly contradicting netanyahu, talking with netanyahu’s political allies and providing direct aid to Palestine.
What you’re doing is pretending, Biden is taking positive diplomatic steps to ameliorate a massacre that the US is not directly involved in.
To quote the guy you’re bending yourself into pretzels to defend addressing the other Netanyahu ally currently running for president: will you shut up, man?
None of what you just said is true except the part of Biden pretending in public that he’s trying to stop it. PRETENDING.
Throwing a tantrum is not very convincing, if you’re curious.
He’s taking practical diplomatic steps for a leader of a country who is indirectly involved in a war.
There’s no pretense about it.
Was your hero Biden throwing a tantrum when he told Trump to shut up? Nope, he was trying to stop a barrage of counterfactual nonsense. As was I.
Nope, he’s pretending to be a moderating influence while in actuality keeping the United States DIRECTLY involved by continuing the supply of the very munitions used to massacre Palestinian civilians.
Next you’re going to tell me that up is down and Trump is a very stable genius. That’s equally true.
I don’t care if you’re a trump supporter, but you’re wrong and making facetious and factually incorrect statements.
That’s not what “directly” means.
You’re either being deliberately misleading or severely politically short-sighted.
Stopping us military aid will have no direct influence on the current military situation, Israel is stocked for years and still has plenty of willing allies.
All your advocating for is throwing away US political influence in a war they are not part of for your own short-term satisfaction.
I very clearly am not. I’m beginning to suspect that your reading comprehension might be extremely poor. Maybe your comprehension of the world in general.
I’ll take “Projection” for 200, Alex!
What could possibly be more direct support of mass slaughter than supplying the weapons you know for a fact are going to be used for it? Does Biden has to personally travel there and kill Palestinian civilians himself for you admit that his government is directly participating?
Back to the projection. In case your comprehension once again fails you, let me clarify: like a typical Republican, you are guilty of what you’re accusing me of.
And I’M the one being short-sighted??
Because Israel currently has a stock of weapons, there’s no point in not helping to increase their supply? That’s positively asinine.
Decreasing by the week and would drop dramatically if countries weren’t afraid of upsetting their relationship with the US by going against the long-standing “support the Israeli government no matter what” policy that the Biden administration is perpetuating.
Also, “willing” is a bit of a stretch when it’s mostly out of fear of worsening relations with the most powerful country in the world.
On the contrary. I’m advocating to use US political and economic influence to help end the atrocities. Making all US military and economic support of the Israeli government contingent on good faith ceasefire negotiations would be a start.
Again with the ridiculous denial that US weapons sales by the US government doesn’t amount to taking part 🙄
Says the guy ignoring the obvious in favor of a dishonest politician who’s going to be doing the corporate speeches circuit in 5 years no matter what happens between now and November.
Palestinian deaths and worsening a humanitarian catastrophe that’s already going to affect generations of people, on the other hand? THAT has long term effects.