Jeff Blankfort makes the following excellent point re the Baird and Ellison op-ed in the Seattle Times:
Accuse me of paranoia but two items are strangely missing from that otherwise excellent article by Baird and Ellison and they are not minor. While there is mention of the paltry sums that the US had provided the Palestinian Authority, there is no mention of the billions of aid and weaponry that the US has given Israel over the years, nor that the weapons used to carry out the destruction of Gaza were American and that reassessing US-Israel relations is not an option but a responsibility since the US has been a willing accessory to Israel's crimes.
The way the article presents the problem, those not familiar with the details of the issue might think the interest of the two members of Congress is strictly a humanitarian one which under the circumstances is not enough.
I agree with Blankfort. I've seen too much triangulation out of the Democrats to not be suspicious of most of what they do. I'm not saying that Baird and Ellison aren't doing what they are doing out of conscience, but they are clearly being kept on a VERY short leash.
U.S. Reps. Brian Baird of Washington and Keith Ellison of Minnesota do miss the essential issue when they consider money, in the form of aid, to be a fitting "reward for moderation and peace" for a people desperately in need of moderation and peace from their foes and putative allies.
Off topic, on a tangent:
"The consequence is that Hamas has not been visibly or demonstrably weakened but, ironically, moderate voices in the region have."
Could the leaders of Israel feel this is a desirable outcome?