On March 29, activists with the Yemeni Liberation Movement (YLM) launched a hunger strike in Washington DC to demand that the United States end its support for the Saudi-led blockade on Yemen. Michael Arria spoke with spoke with YLM organizer Monica Isaac about the strike, the Biden administration’s response, and how activists have pushed ending the Yemen blockade into the political conversation.
One of Trump administration’s last acts is promoting terrible famine in Yemen by designating rebel Houthis as a “terrorist” group because they are Iran-backed. The rightwing Israel lobby group Foundation for Defense of Democracies applauds the move.
Neera Tanden’s high-level nomination to OMB under Joe Biden is in trouble — partly because her think tank the center for American Progress received UAE millions and then may have toned down its criticism, including of the Saudi murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Tony Blinken reflects Joe Biden in spinning highly scripted and cagey responses that steer a delicate path around Israel’s clout in Washington while doing nothing to offend the so-called Jewish state. He says, We need to reenter the Iran deal if Iran reenters it, because trashing the deal has made Israel unsafer; We need to leave troops in Syria and check with Israel on all our actions in the Middle East because it’s the anchor of democracy; and we need to call out Israel’s settlement activity as unhelpful but then not do anything about it.
Eric Edelman and Eliot Cohen, two Republican neoconservatives, endorse Joe Biden saying he will foster bipartisan support for Israel. And don’t worry about the Iran deal. Biden can’t easily return to the deal, Edelman assures a “Jews for Biden” event, because Trump has now set the terms and Dem leaders including Schumer and Menendez don’t like the deal.
The United States has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading arms dealer. It dominates the global trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the Middle East.
On Tuesday, Trump held a ceremonial signing to celebrate the normalization of relations between Israel and the UAE, as well as Israel and Bahrain. As usual the Palestinians are on the outside looking in.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz says Trump “blindsided” and “endanger”-ed Israel by agreeing to give the UAE F-35s in its deal with Israel. So Biden is running to Trump’s right on Israel to win FL, where older Jewish voters are surely pleased by Trump’s doing whatever Israel has wanted.
The Iran/Saudi Arabia/Yemen crisis may break into war and damage the global economy, but U.S. mainstream media leaves out Israel’s deep involvement.
The successful Yemeni rebel drone attack shows that the disastrous Trump-Israel-Saudi Arabia alliance could trigger a global economic crisis. The New York Times report was more concerned with the impact on the global oil price than with the human cost of the Saudi-led war against Yemen, which is a root cause of the attack.