The Shift: Washington supports Israeli aggression

Over the course of a couple days Israeli forces invaded the Jenin refugee camp, killing 12 Palestinians and injuring hundreds. “Though Israeli military officials have tried to downplay the scale of the operation, the most recent raid marked a clear departure in Israel’s military strategy when it comes to raiding West Bank cities like Jenin, which usually features raids that last a few hours and are conducted by special forces on the ground,” wrote Mondoweiss‘ Palestine News Director Yumna Patel at the site this week, “Many Palestinians and political analysts likened the events of the past few days to the way Israel operates in Gaza – a total siege, the constant humming of drones, and using airstrikes as its primary mode of destruction and killing.”

Israel’s aggression escalates, but its support from Washington remains unwavering. The White House National Security Council issued a brief statement declaring that Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism. These sentiments were echoed by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who said that Jenin is a “hub and safe haven for terror networks.”

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) blamed the PA for the violence and claimed that Israel was actually “trying to avoid this because they know the international media and Israel’s detractors would blame them.” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) also blamed the PA. “The Palestinian Authority has all but abandoned Jenin, leaving behind a power vacuum that has been filled by terrorists,” tweeted AIPAC’s favorite Democrat. “In the past six months, those terrorists made Jenin a launching pad for more than 50 shooting attacks against Israelis. Israel is responding with a counterterrorism operation aimed at surgically removing these terrorists and their terror infrastructure. There’s a word for this: self-defense, which is the right of every sovereign country, including Israel.”

Torres’ sentiments prompted immediate backlash. “I get that most Congress members know a little bit about a lot of things, but this level of ignorance is scandalous and just plain embarrassing,” wrote Khaled Elgindy. “The PA is in a state of collapse precisely because of IsraelI violence and repression.”

“Ugh, perhaps vet the racist talking points penned for you,” tweeted Noura Erakat. “Does it concern you that Israel oversees an apartheid regime? That it arms and incites settlers to attack Palestinians w the cover of an army & backed by the U.S.? You’re complicit in war crimes Congressman Torres.”

Congress is on vacation but the only lawmaker to express concern for the Palestinian victims on Twitter was the only Palestinian House member, Rashida Tlaib. The Michigan congresswoman shared a video of an Israeli bulldozer destroying a Jenin street and wrote, “Israeli forces are now blocking ambulances from reaching the dozens of wounded Palestinians after at least eight people were killed in Jenin. Congress must stop funding this violent Israeli apartheid regime.”

Tlaib also linked to a story in Haaretz about Israel banning rescue teams from accessing areas of Jenin. Here’s an excerpt:

Soldiers delaying the work of Palestinian medical teams, even firing at and hitting ambulances, is not new, in Jenin and elsewhere. But the difference, said Mahmoud al-Saadi, “is that this time they officially informed us that ambulances are not allowed to enter the area of the incidents.” The Red Crescent first learned of this from a member of the Palestinian military liaison committee, about 15 minutes after the raid on January 19 began.

This is how it works: Some Israeli officer – usually from the District Coordination and Liaison Office – contacts his Palestinian counterpart, and gives him the order orally (never in writing), which he is supposed to transmit to the Palestinian public. Al-Saadi doesn’t recall exactly who called on January 26, “But we knew with certainty that the Israelis were once again forbidding the entry of ambulances to the camp.” About an hour and a quarter later, he was told by the Red Cross that the ambulances could travel, but “carefully.”

The Red Crescent has 25 employees and six ambulances working in shifts. When there are raids, about 80 percent of the staff work, some on a volunteer basis. Inside the camp, volunteers carry the wounded to the ambulances regardless of the danger and the distance. “We don’t want to find ourselves directly inside the scene of the shooting,” al-Saadi says. “We work carefully, but our obligation to save lives comes first, and that’s our mission. Sometimes, during raids, we also evacuate people suffering from anxiety or even heart attacks due to fear. It has happened that soldiers prevented us from reaching them.

Despite resident testimony, statements from aid groups, and video ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt attacked Tlaib for mentioning the ambulances, called the observation a lie, and (once again) implied that she’s antisemitic.

“Even for Rashida Tlaib, the level of dishonesty here is truly staggering,” wrote Greenblatt. “For starters, it’s a complete fiction. But equally important, this was a targeted action against armed terrorists who brutally murdered innocents, recklessly hid weapons under a mosque and intentionally located their ops center next to a school. But when members of congress knowingly slander the Jewish state in a time of rising anti-Jewish hate, they should be held accountable for fanning the flames and endangering Jewish people everywhere.”

You might recall that just a week ago Greenblatt suggested that people who tweet “Free Palestine” at him are being antisemitic. Pro-Israel groups have always used these tactics to shut down criticism, but one has to believe their effectiveness is diminishing as a result of recent events.

Elliott Abrams is back

In December 1981 the (U.S. trained) Salvadoran Army brutally murdered over 800 people in the village of El Mozote. The men were separated from the women and children. The men were tortured and executed. The women and girls were raped then killed with machine guns. After the entire village was killed the soldiers set fire to the buildings.

Mark Danner, who compiled reports to reconstruct the massacre for a book, revisited the scene for the New Yorker in 1993. Here’s an excerpt:

As the soldiers related it now, the guide said, there had been a disagreement outside the schoolhouse, where a number of children were being held. Some of the men had hesitated, saying they didn’t want to kill the children, and the others had ridiculed them.

According to one account, a soldier had called the commanding officer. “Hey, Major!” he had shouted. “Someone says he won’t kill children!”

“Which son of a bitch says that?” the Major had shouted back angrily, striding over. The Major had not hesitated to do what an officer does in such situations: show leadership. He’d pushed into the group of children, seized a little boy, thrown him in the air, and impaled him as he fell. That had put an end to the discussion.

On his first day as assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs in the Reagan administration Elliott Abrams was tasked with covering the massacre up. He told the Senate that reports of the carnage were “not credible” and not much more than leftist propaganda.

Raymond Bonner, who covered El Salvador for the New York Times, wrote about Abrams connection to the massacre in a 2019 Atlantic piece:

In El Salvador, the Reagan administration, with Abrams as point man, routinely defended the Salvadoran government in the face of evidence that its regular army, and allied right-wing death squads, were operating with impunity, killing peasants, students, union leaders, and anyone considered anti-government or pro-guerrilla. Abrams went so far as to defend one of the death squads’ most notorious leaders, Roberto D’Aubuisson, who was responsible for the murder of Archbishop Óscar Romero while he was saying Mass, in March 1980.

While the Reagan administration was looking for creative ways to illegally fund the Contras, Abrams got the Sultan of Brunei to commit to a $10 million donation. He later pleaded guilty to withholding information but was pardoned by George H.W. Bush.

Abrams went on to work for the second Bush administration, where he advocated for the Iraq War, allegedly disrupted a peace plan with Iran, and “gave the nod” to the administration’s failed 2002 coup attempt in Venezuela. Then he served as the Trump administration’s special envoy to Iran and Venezuela, where he was grilled by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) over his war crimes. You don’t see this kind of stuff in Congress very often, so the exchange is worth revisiting:

REP. ILHAN OMAR: In 1991 you pleaded guilty to two counts of withholding information from Congress regarding your involvement in the Iran-Contra affair, for which you were later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush. I fail to understand why members of this committee or the American people should find any testimony that you give today to be truthful.

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: If I can respond to that—

REP. ILHAN OMAR: It wasn’t a question.

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: I was attacked.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: On February—that was not—

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: It was an attack. And I would—

REP. ILHAN OMAR: That was not a question. That was—I—

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: Chairman—

REP. ILHAN OMAR: I reserve the right to my time.

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: I’m sorry, it is not—it is not right—

REP. ILHAN OMAR: That was not a question.

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: —members of this committee can attack a witness—

REP. ILHAN OMAR: On February 8th—

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: —who is not permitted to reply.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: That—that was not a question. Thank you for your participation. On February 8th, 1982, you testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about U.S. policy in El Salvador. In that hearing, you dismissed as communist propaganda a report about the massacre of El Mozote in which more than 800 civilians, including children as young as 2 years old, were brutally murdered by U.S.-trained troops. During that massacre, some of those troops bragged about raping a 12-year-old girl before they killed them—girls before they killed them. You later said that the U.S. policy in El Salvador was a “fabulous achievement.” Yes or no, do you still think so?

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: From the day that President Duarte was elected in a free election to this day, El Salvador has been a democracy. That’s a fabulous achievement.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yes or no, do you think that massacre was a fabulous achievement that happened under our watch?

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: That is a ridiculous question, and I will not—

REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yes or no?

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: —respond to it. No. I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, I—

REP. ILHAN OMAR: I will take that as a yes.

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: I’m not going to respond to that kind of personal attack, which is not a question.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: Yes or no, would you support an armed faction within Venezuela that engages in war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, if you believe they were serving U.S. interest, as you did in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua?

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: I am not going to respond to that question, I’m sorry. I don’t think this entire line of questioning is meant to be real questions, and so I will not reply.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: Whether you—under your watch, a genocide will take place, and you will look the other way, because American interests were being upheld, is a fair question. Because the American people want to know that any time we engage a country, that we think about what our actions could be and how we believe our values are being furthered. That is my question. Will you make sure that human rights are not violated and that we uphold international and human rights?

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: I suppose there is a question in there, and the answer is that the entire thrust of American policy in Venezuela is to support the Venezuelan people’s effort to restore democracy to their country. That’s our policy.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: I don’t think anybody disputes that. The question I had for you is that the interests—does the interests of the United States include protecting human rights and include protecting people against genocide?

ELLIOTT ABRAMS: That is always the position of the United States.

REP. ILHAN OMAR: Thank you. I yield back my time.

Now Abrams is back, resurrected by a Democratic administration for the first time. On the Monday before July 4th the Biden team announced it was appointing Abrams to the bipartisan US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. On the campaign trail Biden promised to “revitalize our national commitment to advancing human rights and democracy around the world,” and now he’s giving a war criminal yet another foreign policy job.

Abrams’s track record on Israel is well-documented. He was part of the Bush team that effectively tried to push the Fatah coup in response to Palestinians holding a democratic election in 2007. Recently, Abrams criticized Biden for expressing concern about Netanyahu’s judicial reform plans and penned an article calling Jewish people “hysterical” for opposing Israel’s right-wing government.

It remains to be seen what kind of horrors Abrams manages to attach himself to this time around.

Odds & Ends

???????? Biden plays Netanyahu’s lapdog– but many in U.S. are critical of Jenin onslaught.

???????? ADL head smears Tlaib as antisemitic for pointing out Israel blocked ambulances.

❝❞ JVP Action Executive Director Stefanie Fox: “The invasion of Jenin is another example of the way the Israeli government is working hand-in-glove with rightwing settlers to terrorize Palestinians and drive them from their homes and land. As a Jewish organization, we refuse to sit idly by while Palestinian children and families are hiding in their homes — sheltering from rampaging settlers and Israeli warplanes alike.”

Omar Baddar: “Palestine/Israel remains the ONLY contemporary context in which media discourse is obsessed with the invaders & occupiers’ right to “self defense” against the people they’re oppressing, but NEVER a word about the right of the occupied to defend themselves from their oppressors.”

Dr. Yara Hawari: “The stories of community care coming out of Jenin are beautiful. People are housing and clothing those who have lost their homes. They are feeding Palestinian journalists who have been on the ground reporting for days. Even amongst the rubble, we practice love.”

Al-Shabaka fellow Tariq Kenney-Shawa: “Israel’s stated military objective in invading Jenin was to wipe out Palestinian resistance entirely. Once again, they failed. Yet, this won’t be the last because these raids have nothing to do with Israel’s security, but everything to do with punishing Palestinians for existing.”

Statement from the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace:

As rabbis, we condemn the Israeli government’s devastating attack on the people of Jenin. We watched as a refugee camp and city were encircled and then bombed, and as thousands of Palestinian families were forced at gunpoint to flee their homes. The Israeli military’s actions were unconscionable. And the U.S. government is a collaborator in the project. 

The devastation of Jenin is the true face of the Israeli government and an expression of Israel’s endgame: the depopulation of Palestinians from historic Palestine, along with the total pacification of those who remain. This has always been a main component in achieving the Zionist goal of complete Judaization of eretz yisrael, and the callous disregard of Palestinian life. Israel’s Jewish supremacy is an ongoing and imminent threat to Palestinian life. 

The Israeli government constantly deploys the products of its massive military and technological industry against Palestinians, whose existence it views as disposable. The Israeli military’s cruel attack on Jenin’s beloved Freedom Theater, while families were sheltering inside, highlights the ongoing crimes against Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank and Gaza; It is quite literally enclosing people in a kill zone. The Israeli government has authorized: dropping bombs on civilians and assassination by snipers, the unleashing of settler pogroms, the persecution and targeted killing of journalists and activists, the continued denial of healthcare to wounded people, and the massive destruction of civil infrastructure and family homes. There is no safety from the cruelty of Israeli invasions. The children of Jenin are crying out to us from behind the Wall. What shall we do? 

There is no hiding from the horror of what Jenin has endured. We must act. We must hold Jewish communities and government officials accountable for allowing the attacks to continue. Each day a Jewish person takes action to resist Israeli occupation, we affirm what the Torah requires: To protest within our households, our cities and our world until the occupation is ended, the right of return is restored and Palestinians can live peacefully in their land.

⚖️ Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) is seeking a Leahy Law sanction on an Israeli unit operating in Jenin:

A detailed investigation of the March 2023 attack by the YAMAM unit documented the extrajudicial killings of two men and the wanton recklessness that killed two others in Jenin’s civilian neighborhood, which legal experts concluded were gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.” On May 26, 2023, journalists Imogen Piper, Meg Kelly and Louisa Loveluck published an investigative report in the Washington Post. The journalists “synchronized 15 videos and reviewed dozens more from March 16, including CCTV footage from surrounding businesses, some of which took nearly a month to surface. They also spoke to nine witnesses and obtained testimonies from four others to produce a 3D reconstruction of the raid.” According to their findings, there were at least 16 civilians in the area as the agents fired more than 20 shots, including the bullet that killed 14-year-old Awadin.

???????? U.K. anti-BDS Bill Ignites Criticism From Both Tory and Labour MPs.

⃠ Biden won’t protect Palestinian Americans from Israeli attacks.

???????? Iran counters Western isolation with regional diplomatic push.

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Stay safe out there,

Michael