u s aid to ukraine
Biden Must End Unconditional Aid for Israel to Beat Trump
The president is at risk of losing support from Muslim, African American, and young voters in key swing states.
As I recently wrote in these pages: “The unpopularity of President Joe Biden’s Israel-Gaza policy among Arab Americans, African Americans, and young people could well flip the electoral vote to hand former President Donald Trump the 2024 election. A few tens of thousands of these voters in a handful of swing states who likely would have voted for Biden but vote for Trump, a third party, or just stay home could well be enough for Trump to win the presidency legally.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has responded to Biden’s mild attempts to convince him to negotiate a cease-fire deal to release the hostages and to avoid a massive ground attack on Rafah by essentially telling Biden to “f**k off.”
After a 40-minute phone call with Biden earlier this week Netanyahu rejected calls to continue negotiating a cease-fire for hostage release deal and wrote on X: “My position can be summed up in two sentences: 1. Israel rejects out-of-hand international diktats about a final-status solution with the Palestinians… 2. Israel will continue to oppose unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.”
If Biden and his congressional allies could break up the bill into separate parts for military aid and border security, they can further break up the bill into separate parts concerning the proposed arms sales for Israel and those for Ukraine.
As The Wall Street Journalreported: “Biden has shown no willingness to use the biggest tool in his arsenal: weapons sales to Israel. The president has dismissed any talk of slowing arms sales to Israel, U.S. officials said, and instead has largely relied on the bully pulpit to try to express discontent.” Biden’s so-called “bully pulpit” has been totally ineffective and instead demonstrates nothing but Biden’s weakness in the face of Netanyahu giving him the middle finger. Among other things, it shows that Netanyahu would like to help his friend Donald Trump defeat Biden.
Meanwhile, Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress have continued to tie a proposed bill for $60 billion in much-needed supplies to Ukraine to help them stave off Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression with $14.1 billion in new military aid to Israel, which is completely unneeded to pursue a guerrilla war against Hamas which lacks most advanced weaponry.
That bill originally included the bipartisan compromise with Senate Republicans on so-called “border security.” But when House Republicans rejected that compromise, the Democrats stripped the border security provisions from the bill and are now trying to get the rest of the bill, including the military aid to Israel and Ukraine, past reluctant House Republicans.
If Biden and his congressional allies could break up the bill into separate parts for military aid and border security, they can further break up the bill into separate parts concerning the proposed arms sales for Israel and those for Ukraine (plus aid to Taiwan and humanitarian aid for Palestinians).
Biden must stop advocating for more unconditional military aid to Israel. Instead, he can add conditions that Israel: (i) stop the slaughter of innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza; (ii) agree to a hostage for cease-fire deal; and (iii) commit to a pathway to a two-state solution which both recognizes Israel’s right to exist with security and the right of Palestinians to their own sovereignty, at the very least.
As Democratic U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), Dick Durbin (Ill.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (Md.), and Peter Welch (Vt.) wrote in The Washington Post: “Given the lack of a meaningful response to the Biden administration’s appeals to the Netanyahu government, the responsibility to lead falls upon the United States. It falls on the United States because we are the largest provider of military assistance to Israel. It falls on us because the United States has supplied many of the bombs and artillery shells that Israel has employed in its Gaza campaign.”
Biden putting conditions on further aid to Israel is not only the morally right thing to do and consistent with American values; it could help prevent Biden’s Electoral College loss to Trump due to the defection of Muslim, African American, and young voters in key swing states.
A Trump victory would be cheered by Netanyahu, Putin, and other authoritarian rulers around the world.
Mexican President Urges US to Stop Fueling Migration With Sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela
"We're going to keep insisting on addressing the root causes of migration," said Andrés Manuel López Obrador. "Sanctions and blockades cannot be maintained."
Stressing the need for "addressing the root causes of migration," Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday blamed U.S. sanctions against countries including Cuba and Venezuela for driving the surge of migrants crossing his country to seek better lives in the United States.
Speaking at his daily press briefing, López Obrador said that 10,000 migrants per day make their way to Mexico's border with the United States. The president lamented the deaths of nine Cuban women and one girl who, after entering Mexico from Guatemala, were hiding in an overloaded cargo truck that crashed in the southern state of Chiapas on Sunday. Seventeen other migrants were injured in the crash.
López Obrador linked the migrants' deaths to the internationally condemned U.S. embargo of Cuba, which according to a 2018 report by a United Nations commission has cost the small island nation at least $130 billion over the past seven decades.
"That's why we're going to keep insisting on addressing the root causes of migration, the origins" he said. "Get to the core and stop politicking, think human rights over ideology. Sanctions and blockades cannot be maintained. We must help... the countries with the most poverty. There must be universal brotherhood."
López Obrador repeated his criticism of ongoing U.S. military aid to Ukraine in the face of so much poverty and suffering closer to home.
"How much have they destined to the war in Ukraine, $30 or $50 billion for the war, which is the most irrational thing there can be, and harmful," he said.
At last Friday's press briefing, López Obrador noted that the U.S. is spending "a lot more... for the war in Ukraine than what they give to help with poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean."
The president urged the U.S. "to remove blockades and stop harassing independent and free countries" and to implement "an integrated plan for cooperation so the Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Ecuadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans wouldn't be forced to emigrate."
"Remove blockades and stop harassing independent and free countries."
López Obrador's remarks—which came as senior Biden administration officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Attorney General Merrick Garland prepared to visit Mexicothis week—echo recent comments by Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
"The blockade against Venezuela has had a boomerang-type response, now hitting the very United States, which is the one who decided to impose the blockade. So, knocking at their door is the population that they drove into poverty," Petro—Colombia's first leftist president—toldDemocracy Now! on September 21.
"Many [Venezuelans] have left, and now what they want is to make it to the United States," he said. "How can one partially reduce the exodus? Well, lift the blockade against Venezuela."
"The scars of history, the invasions from before, the old imperialism, the old domination continue to weigh against humanity," Petro added. "That is why a government such as the Biden administration should... let the scars heal. They're not going to go away, but let them heal. End blockades and open up a plural dialogue, which I think would benefit all of us, both in North America and in South America."
Under U.S. pressure, Mexico has cracked down on migrants in an effort to stop refugees, asylum-seekers, and those looking for better economic conditions from reaching the countries' shared border. Checkpoints, discrimination, and alleged human rights crimes—including shootings with live ammunition and rapes—have increased in parts of Mexico, especially near its southern and northern borders.
Meanwhile, human rights defenders have documented continued "frequent and severe" abuse of migrants and some American citizens allegedly perpetrated by U.S. Department of Homeland Security personnel at the southern border.