The US president offered his sharpest rebuke of Israel in the war so far
BY JC REPORTERJEWISH NEWS SYNDICATEMAY 09, 2024 06:50
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2X564WX President Joe Biden speaks at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Annual Days of Remembrance ceremony at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, May 7, 2024 in Washington. Statue of Freedom stands behind. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
If Israel goes into Rafah, the United States will stop providing weapons to the Jewish state, US President Joe Biden told CNN, on Wednesday.
Hours after the Pentagon confirmed that the United States had withheld military aid to Israel and the day after Biden spoke at the Days of Remembrance for Holocaust victims at the US Capitol, the president told CNN that Gazans have been killed due to the 2,000-pound bombs, which Washington is withholding from the Jewish state, and “other ways in which they go after population centers.”
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah—they haven’t gone in Rafah yet—if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities—that deal with that problem,” Biden said.
The U.S. president claimed that his administration isn’t walking away from Israel’s security and that it would continue to “continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks that came out of the Middle East recently.”
“But it’s, it’s just wrong. We’re not going to—we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells,” he said.
Israel experts said that Biden is the one who is just wrong.
“Let’s be brutally clear here. Israel cannot defeat Hamas without entering Rafah, where Hamas maintains four fully functioning battalions,” wrote David Friedman, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “Biden is siding with Hamas over Israel. There’s no other way to say it.”
“Biden continues to fail on every tough foreign policy call,” Friedman added. “It’s all to gain the votes of self-hating Americans.”
“I’ve said for months what Joe Biden now admits: his de facto position is for a Hamas victory against Israel,” wrote Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
Multiple Republicans in Congress denounced the president’s statements, including Reps. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), Max Miller (R-Ohio) and Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa).
“Hamas must be destroyed in Gaza and President Biden stands in the way. The president has turned his back on our best ally in the region and it’s only democracy,” wrote Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). “Our goal should be for Israel to quickly defeat Hamas and get humanitarian aid to the civilians.”
“This is outrageous. By his actions, Joe Biden is undermining the security of Israel and aiding Hamas, a terrorist organization,” wrote Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.). “The president must immediately reverse course and transfer the weapons and munitions to Israel, per legislation passed by Congress.”
“Unacceptable. There should be no wavering in U.S. support for Israel,” wrote Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa). “What happened to Biden’s ‘ironclad’ commitment?”
Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia, wrote that Biden’s “dangerous decision undermines Israel at a pivotal time in their efforts to destroy Hamas and only shows further weakness to our adversaries. This administration is making America and our allies less safe at every turn.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence also slammed the decision, as did former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who wrote “Biden has lost his mind. If he does this, he is helping Hamas to survive—and win. I’ll take Donald Trump’s mean tweets any day. None of them is as bad as Biden.”
“Hard disagree and deeply disappointing,” wrote Senator John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
“Call it what it is: a U.S. arms embargo against Israel,” stated The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “That’s the astonishing story this week as the Biden Administration confirms it is blocking the delivery of weapons to its main ally in the Middle East.”
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Yaakov KatzLet’s Talk
You can’t blame all opposition to the Gaza war on antisemitism
Yes, these is bias against Israel. But the Jewish state must take responsibility for its errors
Anti-Israel protesters occupy space at an entrance to Hamilton Hall at Columbia University (Photo: Getty)
May 06, 2024 09:56
The pro-Hamas protests at American college campuses over the last few weeks have served as a stark reminder of how antisemitism continues to thrive in the West. It was not surprising that these protests – especially among young people – took place and they served as an illustration of the well-known double standard applied to the State of Israel.
This sentiment was articulated in a long post published by Israel’s former prime minister Naftali Bennett on X. Listing some of the previous conflicts over the past 50 years – Syria, Congo, Iraq and Afghanistan – Bennett asked what made the Gaza war so unique that it has sparked such outrage.
“Because it’s Israel, the only Jewish state on earth. It’s the Jews,” he answered, adding later that “this wave of Israel-hate is simply a new incarnation of good old antisemitism.”
Bennett is partially right. Yes, the world is antisemitic and yes there is an extreme double standard in the way the world judges Israel.
But, what the former prime minister failed to mention in his long post were the severe flaws in Israeli policies ahead of the war (some of which he was responsible), the strategy the country has outlined for the way it has managed the war and even the tactical way the war has been prosecuted by the IDF since the ground offensive began about six months ago.
Israel’s refusal, for example, from the beginning of the conflict to outline a “day after” plan and explain that the defeat of Hamas is needed to pave a path to normalisation in the region, has not done the country any favours. Instead, the world has heard only slogans like “complete victory” and “destroy Hamas” without any articulation of what comes next.
The reason this has not happened is because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fear that if he articulates a “day after” plan that wil– need to include the Palestinian Authority, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich will pull out of the government and he will lose his coalition.
A different government without these two far-right politicians could have articulated a plan. It would not have stopped useful idiots and antisemites from protesting at Columbia University, but it probably would have changed the world’s overall tone toward Israel.
This is without even getting into the way Israel decided to contain Hamas and – in some cases – even strengthen it at a time that it could have weakened the Gaza-based terrorist group. Bennett was part of that misconception and followed the Netanyahu containment policy when he became prime minister in 2021, allowing Palestinians from Gaza into Israel to work, keeping the Qatari money flowing to Hamas and balking – like Netanyahu before him – from ordering the IDF to eliminate Hamas’s leadership when it had the chance.
So, again – is the world biased against Israel? 100 per cent. Is there antisemitism? Of course.
But antisemitism cannot be blamed for everything. Israelis need to take responsibility for their decisions as well and for how they contributed to the war and the way the world now views the Jewish state. Trying to blame everything on antisemitism will not solve Israel’s problems. It will only lead to more mistakes by the country in the future.
May 06, 2024 09:56
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News / Palestine / Editor’s Choice
AIPAC censures Biden for pausing arms shipment to Israel
Wednesday, 08 May 2024 7:04 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 08 May 2024 7:12 PM ]
Michael Tuchin (R), president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken are seen in this photo in June 2023 at the group’s annual policy summit. (Photo by Getty Images)
The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has hit out at US President Joe Biden for his decision to delay arms shipment to Israel.
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Miriam Levinger – Zionism
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The World Zionist Organization has been in existence since the late 1800s, and this is just one of a number of international organizations that work on behalf of Israel.
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Another mass grave uncovered in Gaza, bodies ‘without heads’ found
Wednesday, 08 May 2024 5:25 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 08 May 2024 5:42 PM ]
By Robert Inlakesh
“Everywhere you walk there are graves, decomposing bodies or potentially people buried under the rubble”, a resident of northern Gaza’s al-Rimal neighborhood told the Press TV website, describing mass graves at two of the largest medical complexes in the besieged coastal territory.
The discovery of hundreds of mass graves at the Nasser and al-Shifa hospital complexes, where United Nations (UN) officials reported that bodies were “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste”, has led its officials to call for an international probe into the horrors being uncovered.
So far, some 400 bodies have been recovered at the Nasser Hospital in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, while around 300 bodies have been discovered at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
The deceased include “older people, women and wounded, while others were found tied with their hands…tied and stripped of their clothes,” said the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani.
While the Israeli military downplayed reports about mass graves as “baseless and unfounded”, it made the mistake of admitting to having dug up bodies that had been previously buried, in the process of trying to explain away the irrefutable evidence documented.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that “the presence of urinary catheters or splints, which were found to be still attached to some of the dead patients’ bodies during the exhumation process, as well as medical files that were buried with them in Al-Shifa Medical Complex, confirm the execution of ill and injured people.”
The Switzerland-based rights group also reported that some of the “victims’ decomposing bodies were found in several places, with some having been run over by Israeli bulldozers which left their bodies torn into pieces” and that Israeli forces had been using Palestinian civilians at al-Shifa Hospital as human shields.
Gaza’s civil defense also called for help in forensic examination to find out more about 20 bodies that they believe were buried alive.
First-person account of Al-Shifa horror
Palestinian journalist, Motasem A Dalloul, who is based in northern Gaza, was one of the first on the scene to witness the aftermath of al-Shifa Hospital and had to reach the area on bicycle as the roads were too severely damaged for vehicles.
Press TV website spoke to him around an hour after he finished documenting the horrifying scenes in and around the coastal territory’s largest hospital complex.
Describing the scene upon his arrival at the scene of the hospital, he said that “the Israeli invasion resulted in the destruction of an area of 1000 meters around al-Shifa Hospital.”
“Homes, schools, mosques, in addition to the actual hospital were all destroyed. I saw everything, I saw unprecedented destruction and as I arrived there, I went to the main gate of al-Shifa Hospital and as I walked forward I saw that it was blocked with the burned remains of two destroyed ambulances and so I entered through a hole in the wall beside it,” he told the Press TV website.
Dalloul then described the scenes of destruction upon entering the hospital’s grounds:
“I found all the buildings were affected. The main building, which included the reception and the surgery department, was completely destroyed. The special surgery building, which included the ICU and the operation rooms and the patient beds, was completely destroyed,” he narrated.
“It had not collapsed but was destroyed from the inside and completely burned. I then went through the other buildings, walking through the maternity ward and the cancer treatment facility which were, in addition to the administrative building, everything was either partially or completely destroyed, or burned out.”
The Palestinian journalist based in Gaza painted a graphic picture of mass graves that were discovered at the prominent hospital that is now lying in ruins due to Israeli bombings.
“If you enter the medical complex from the East to the West, on your right-hand side there is a mass grave. I saw parts of bodies on the surface of the soil. I saw decomposing hands and parts of heads. When I counted the number of bodies that were visible, I counted that around 15 people were visible in this mass grave,” he explained with unutterable grief and sorrow.
“I saw bodies of people who were either killed or executed inside the buildings and around the yards of the hospital.”
‘Hospital is gone forever’
Dalloul said that when he spoke to Dr. Marwan Abu Saada, the director of al-Shifa Hospital’s ICU department, he was told that it would take 10 years to rebuild such a facility and that the “hospital is gone forever”.
He added that Dr. Saada was in tears while he was explaining the extent of the unprecedented damage at the hospital that remained in the news for several weeks due to the military siege.
Since then, the ICU department director has publicly appealed to the international community to launch a probe into the Israeli military siege, death and destruction at the al-Shifa Hospital.
Press TV website was also told about the horrifying cases of children searching for the remains of their grandparents, parents and siblings – an unimaginable situation for anyone to go through.
Press TV website contacted Motassem again, around a week later, to update us on the work done by professional teams sent to exhume bodies that were lying in mass graves at al-Shifa Hospital.
He told us that there was an urgent need for supplies at the time in order to help identify the bodies.
On the day the Israeli military withdrew from al-Shifa after weeks of siege, there were bodies of children, women and men that were left in the streets, many of which were already decomposed or badly mutilated by tanks and bulldozers, so the only way to identify the dead was from their clothing.
A harrowing case reported by Mondoweiss, during the aftermath of the Al-Nasser Hospital invasion, confirmed that the process of identifying the bodies in mass graves was similar to what occurred at al-Shifa.
A 51-year-old man named Ayman, who visited the hospital with his wife and one of his sons, was left searching through “a pit of bodies buried, cut up” that were in pieces and left scattered amongst bags of garbage, stating that his son “was wearing the blue wool sweater.”
“I bought it for him. I know everything he wears and can identify him by his clothes,” he said.
A Palestinian man, pleading anonymous, who was seeking shelter at the Al-Nasser Hospital complex, but left before Israeli forces stormed and occupied it, said he wasn’t at all surprised.
“They used drones to shoot at us if we moved, many were killed like this every day and when the tanks came we chose to leave because it was not safe. Everyone knew that the Israelis would kill many, including many of the medical staff and they still stayed to perform their jobs,” he told the Press TV website.
“We remember the bravery of the doctors and medical staff, they were heroes and the Israelis don’t care for human lives. Look what they did at every hospital, at schools, at our homes. They killed people holding up white flags, the mass graves are not just at the hospitals, they are everywhere and the death toll is so much higher than we are told I am sure.”
13,000 still missing, likely buried
Important to note is that although two of the largest mass graves that have been discovered to date are those outlined here, yet there are around 13,000 Palestinians still missing and buried in the rubble throughout the Gaza Strip.
In January, 50 bodies were discovered at the Khalifa Bin Zayed elementary school in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia, a school being used for shelter by displaced refugees, while another 30 bodies were discovered dumped in black bags amongst garbage at the Hamad School; the bodies were decomposing but showed signs of torture and many were found with their hands and feet bound.
Israel is also known for holding the dead bodies of slain Palestinians, with various reports stating that when they were returned to their families, their organs were missing.
This even prompted the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor to call for an international inquiry into the seizure of bodies and possible organ trafficking.
Amongst the abuses that have occurred at the Nasser Hospital and al-Shifa Hospital are the deprivation of food, water and medical care to the sick and injured; in addition to various forms of torture, arbitrary executions and even sexual violence.
The United Nations recorded at least two cases of Israeli soldiers raping Palestinians in February, yet, after countless allegations of rape and other forms of sexual violence, again, there has been no international probe into these credible reports.
With the discovery of the mass graves at the al-Shifa and Nasser medical complexes, there is an urgent need for international, independent probes into the conduct of the Israeli regime’s ground forces, believe human rights experts.
The mass graves are only part of the gruesome series of massacres but should be a turning point due to the sheer scale of murdered and mutilated bodies found, they state.
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
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BIG BROTHER in the 21. Century 