American words vs. American deeds
JVL Introduction
If any state can influence the course of Israel’s war on Gaza it is the United States.
In this podcast Peter Beinart notes the shift in the Biden administration’s position from giving Israel full complete rhetorical support, to the series of warnings now offered:
- don’t kill so many civilians;
- leave open the possibility of a Palestinian state;
- be willing to bring back the Palestinian Authority;
- don’t expel Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt.
But, Beinart makes clear, these are meaningless unless ongoing US military support is made conditional.
More than that, he reminds his American listeners, the United States is not a bystander, but is directly complicit. Many of the weapons being used are actually American weapons.
Unless the US gets its act together and conditions its military aid, it will be judged extremely harshly in the years to come.
RK
This article was originally published by the Beinart Notebook on Sun 3 Dec 2023. Read the original here.
American words vs. American deeds
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This is the most honest interview I’ve listened to, in the past two months – but – even this interview is a little behind the news from Israel/Palestine.
Obviously, recorded before, either, interviewer or interviewee had heard of, or read the reports in Haaretz, debunking the IDF horror stories of mass sexual assaults and infanticides on the 7 Oct.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1731745533474074663
By contrast, take a look at this extract from an article on the Intercept website:
“President Reagan responded firmly against Israel after witnessing the carnage brought on by its bombing of Lebanon. In July 1982, Reagan halted the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel over concerns the weapons were causing too many civilian casualties.
The same year, he called Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and warned him about the U.S. view of the Israel-Lebanon war. “Menachem, this is a holocaust,” he told him.
Twenty minutes after the phone call, Begin ordered Israeli troops to temporarily halt attacks in Lebanon, a brief lull in an otherwise bloody decade in Lebanon.”
“BARACK OBAMA WASN’T NEARLY AS TOUGH ON ISRAEL AS REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS” by Zaid Jilani