Barak Ravid of Axios reports that SOS Blinken will report to Congress as required by NSM-20 on the US government’s assessment of Israel’s self-declared compliance with international humanitarian law on Friday. According to three officials, the report is critical, but “will not conclude that Israel violated international law” and thus, is eligible for weapons transfers. Read here: www.axios.com/…
This contradicts the findings of international organisations and leaked documents from USAID and the State Department that suggested there were violations that restricted humanitarian aid that would make Israel ineligible for such arms transfers according to NSM-20, and the Leahy Laws. See: www.devex.com/... The State Department’s penchant for ignoring the evidence will invite severe criticism from an already skeptical public, who is familiar with the hold up of US flour shipments (150 trucks full) at the Port of Ashdod for weeks in February 2024 by Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich in defiance of President Biden. To wit, www.timesofisrael.com/…
It is indeed disheartening that the State Department is unwilling to implement the laws on the books to hold the Israeli regime accountable for its blatant violations of the same. The 88 Democratic lawmakers who wrote to POTUS detailing Israeli violations will be absolutely apoplectic once they hear Blinken’s assessment. Some of those lawmakers such as Van Hollen and Merkley personally witnessed the Israeli aid truck inspection process and concluded that it was arbitrary and designed to obstruct the flow of life saving aid. To wit, www.newyorker.com/…
With Israel’s current take over of the Rafah crossing which has shut off aid trucks since Sunday, and the forced displacement of 80,000 people to the overcrowded and under- resourced wasteland of al-Muwasi on the coast, aid organisations are predicting global famine in Gaza. Nevertheless, the SOS does not appear to be disconcerted by Israel’s historic pattern of obstructing humanitarian aid over the last 6.5 months. As Marcellus said in Hamlet, “Something is truly rotten in the state of Denmark,” but let us just proceed as if everything is just fine and keep the weapons flowing.