Last month the Biden administration announced that the Israeli government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza or else the country could lose access to some U.S. weapons.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin established the deadline in a letter to Israel’s ministers, in which it laid out 16 conditions that Israel would have to meet. “Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for U.S. policy,” it read.
When asked about the move during a press briefing State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller reiterated the need for Israel to act.
“The bottom line is we felt it was appropriate, if we are making clear to the Government of Israel that there are these changes that need to be implemented, that we give them an appropriate period of time to implement it – implement them,” he told reporters. “We didn’t think it was appropriate to send a letter and just say this has to happen overnight; we gave them a – made clear there’s a short window in which we want to see changes, because the humanitarian situation is so dire on the ground.”
That deadline has now passed and a group of aid organizations (including Oxfam and Save the Children) have published a detailed report showing that Israel has failed to meet any of the conditions mentioned in the Blinken/Austin letter.
“Israel’s actions failed to meet any of the specific criteria set out in the U.S. letter. Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza,” reads the opening section. “That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago. The principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee now assess that ‘the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.’ The findings of this scorecard underscore Israel’s failure to comply with U.S. demands and international obligations. Israel should be held accountable for the end result of failing to ensure the adequate provision of food, medical, and other supplies to reach people in need.”
Israel did respond to one condition of the letter, announcing that it plans to open an aid crossing into Gaza at Kissufim, but there’s no indication that any humanitarian aid has actually traveled through it.
Despite this reality, the White House has made it clear that they don’t plan to withhold any weapons from Israel.
“I certainly don’t have a change in U.S. policy to announce today,” said State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel at Tuesday’s briefing. “We have seen some steps being taken. There need to be some additional steps that are also taken,” he added.
Patel was repeatedly pressed by reporters about the issue. “You guys were the ones that gave them the 30-day deadline,” said the AP’s Matt Lee. “It’s hard to see your answers today, such as they are, as anything other than kind of giving them a pass for not meeting the criteria that was laid out in the letter.”
Patel responded by deflecting from the letter and claiming that the U.S. would continue to monitor the situation.
“Certainly, Matt, I would not view it as giving them a pass,” said Patel. “Because, one, no one is up here – certainly I’m not – saying that the situation in Gaza or their humanitarian circumstances are rosy. It is a very dire circumstance. And what we need to see is we need to see these steps acted on. We need to see them implemented. And the ultimate hope is that through these steps some conditions have been created in which we can see things like additional aid, additional food trucks, additional measures being taken that ultimately will be beneficial to the Palestinian people in Gaza. That’s what we aim to see.”
“Is this not inconsistent with U.S. law that you had to send this letter and lay out this timeline because they had withheld so much aid up to this point?,” asked CNN’s Jennifer Hansler.
“Jenny, the point of this letter was to raise some areas of concern and to lay out some steps in which we thought that addressing some of these areas would lead to steps in the right direction when it comes to humanitarian assistance, claimed Patel. “We have seen some steps being taken.”
A September report from ProPublica’s Brett Murphy revealed that multiple governmental bodies concluded that Israel has purposely blocked humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza and that Blinken was briefed on the issue, but chose to reject the findings while testifying before congress.
One source told Murphy that the State Department did not welcome information showing that aid was being blocked. “A lot of times they would not accept it because it was lower than what the Israelis said,” the person said. “The sentiment from Washington was, ‘We want to see the aid increasing because Israel told us it would.'”
In an interview at Zeteo’s Mehdi Hasan Senator Chris Van Hollen suggests that the Blinken/Austin letter was a cynical ploy to generate votes for Vice President Kamala Harris.
“[I’m concerned] this was a political attempt to try to send a message to voters a month ago that ‘oh, the president really does care about the situation – the humanitarian situation in Gaza,’” said Van Hollen.
Finding meaning in Gaza’s ocean of sufferingAsem Alnabih
…….
History shows that change comes about with resistance – often a small group of seemingly ordinary people rising up to demand change. From a word of protest addressed to the person at the center of power to taking up arms against those with military might, resistance is as ancient as history itself.
This history is traced from Karbala, where Hussein ibn Ali faced oppression in the quest for freedom, to the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto, where people dug tunnels as part of their fight against the Nazis. For Nelson Mandela, it was a long walk to freedom against apartheid in South Africa.
Actions led by the resistance, like Palestine’s Al-Aqsa Flood, are among hundreds of such examples often synonymous with staking a rightful claim to freedom, dignity and justice at the cost of imprisonment, death and annihilation.
Palestinians understand that sacrifice and pain are the price for their right to freedom and self-determination. But Israelis generally do not favor this path of sacrifice, the difficult path.
The former British diplomat Alastair Crooke says of Israelis, particularly the young men in the military who he describes as “post-modern”: “Suffering is not something that they welcome. Suffering is something you avoid. Suffering is something that has no meaning and has no value.”
Crooke adds that by contrast, the Israelis are “facing an enemy which does see meaning in suffering, which does see meaning in loss of life.” Even if the “bloodshed is terrible, it is ghastly … it’s something that can preserve your people, even if you will not be there at the time. It is a very different type of thinking and a way of thinking.”
Meanwhile, the masses of humanity are firmly on the side of the Palestinians. This may not necessarily result in liberation today. But it will precipitate what those who have studied history closely know to be inevitable, including the exiled Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. This is the fuel that Israel is unable to stop flowing into Gaza and it gives everyone, young and old, hope that Palestine will soon one day be free.
Most revolutions and freedom struggles only succeed after time, repeated efforts and many setbacks along the way. The key to enduring the pain and suffering is to recognize that the aim is not to achieve everything all at once. Instead, acknowledge that every drop in the ocean matters.
As long as the cause is immortalized in the hearts and minds of the masses, victory is as certain as daylight following a long dark night of pain and suffering.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/finding-meaning-gazas-ocean-suffering/49891?
A now meaningless pre-election letter intended to promote Kamala, which apparently failed to anticipate the red wave wipeout. The Biden administration is now lame duck, and nothing of importance will happen until Trump takes control.
It is as clear as ever, America is biased toward Israel. The system is gameable
However, both sides have the opportunity to engage. Thoughtful reflection is needed.