Biden Aid Port Plan Rebuked as 'Pathetic' PR Effort as Israel Starves Gazans by Jake Johnson, Common Dreams, March 7 https://www.commondreams.org/news/state-of-the-union-gaza-port . . . "Wouldn't it be easier to demand Israel let in aid right now while Palestinian children are literally being starved to death?" asked Josh Ruebner, an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University and former policy director of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. "Waiting 45-60 days to build a temporary pier doesn't help Palestinians starving to death today." . . . Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, wrote on social media that "the infrastructure required to get aid to those who need it in Gaza already exists, the problem is just that Israel keeps attacking and obstructing it."
"We need accountability, not more harebrained headline-chasing schemes," Talbot added. "Literally nobody on the ground is advocating for this. They want you to stop prov[id]ing the bombs doing the damage." # # # Biden Admin Quietly Approves 100+ Arms Sales to Israel While Claiming Concern for Civilians in Gaza DemocracyNow! interviews Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official who resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza. https://www.democracynow.org/2024/3/7/josh_paul_israel_gaza_war While the Biden administration has been publicly voicing reservations over the mounting death toll in Gaza, a Washington Post investigation revealed the administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate weapons sales to Israel over the last five months, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters and other lethal aid. Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the launch of Israel’s assault on October 7, which the Biden administration approved using emergency authority to bypass Congress. “It is actually illegal to provide military assistance to a country that is restricting U.S.-funded humanitarian assistance, and we know that this is the case with Israel,” says Josh Paul, a veteran State Department official who worked on arms deals and resigned in protest of a push to increase arms sales to Israel amid its assault on Gaza. Paul describes the “production line”-style sale of weapons to Israel and says increasing internal dissent is putting pressure on Biden to change his “dead-end” policy of unconditional support for Israel. “We have a president and a set of policies … that remain set on this course regardless of the harm it is doing to Israeli security, to American global interests and, of course, to so many Palestinians.” . . . Josh Paul: ... Israel, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of using its own money to procure weapons through the Foreign Military Sales system, through the direct promotional sales system, which, by the way, The Washington Post didn’t touch on. And it’s quite possible that there’s a hundred more sales through that other channel to Israel that we don’t know about. And, of course, you know, we are providing Israel with military ground assistance, which it can also tap into and knows that it will be able to tap into, because it has a 10-year commitment from us to continue providing billions of dollars a year, unlike Ukraine. So it’s a slightly different situation and much easier, I think, for Israel to continue to receive weapons even in the absence of a supplemental, unlike Ukraine. . . . US Has Secretly Sent Israel Over 100 Weapons Shipments in Last 150 Days This amounts to one arms shipment every 1.5 days. by Sharon Zhang, Truthout, March 6, 2024 https://truthout.org/articles/report-us-has-secretly-sent-israel-over-100-weapons-shipments-in-last-150-days/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29324): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29324 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104799976/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
