Why we're still arming Israel
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What happened at the Jabalia refugee camp and why did it spark controversy?
In late October 2023, about three weeks into Israel's war in Gaza, the Israeli military bombed a refugee camp called Jabalia, one of the most densely populated places on earth.
A witness described to CNN that it quote felt like the end of the world. Here they are, children. We are filling up bags with children. We are placing them in bags. It is horrible. It is horrifying. It is just shocking.
Israel was targeting Hamas militants and said it killed several of them in Jabalia. 23 kids were also killed. The bombs were 2,000-pound American-made bunker busters. The Biden administration eventually stopped selling those to Israel over concerns they would be misused in other highly populated areas. Now President Trump wants to send more of those bombs to Israel, and American tax dollars are gonna pay for them. Today explained from Vox a new book documenting the failures of the Biden administration raises the question of why the US is still arming Israel. Support for Texpain comes from Addio. There are sales teams out there who never seem to stop moving, always a step ahead, always working with a level of precision that doesn't seem normal.
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is today explained.
I'm Akbar Shahid Ahmed. I'm the diplomatic correspondent at the Washington Sun, and I'm the author of Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel's War in Gaza.
Your book is called Crossing the Red Line, and the Red Line refers to something specific. What was it and what happened?
President Joe Biden, six months into Israel's retaliatory campaign after October 7th, clearly said the way that the Israeli offensive in Gaza had gone was excessive. He said that Rafah, the southernmost town in Gaza, which by that point, in March of 2024, the Israelis had not yet attacked, needed to be treated differently. It was a place where upwards of 1 million pounds Palestinians were by done sheltering, and it was the only entry point for goods, humanitarian aid, aid workers into Gaza that weren't controlled by Israel, a combatant. So President Biden said: if the Israelis don't create a plan for those civilians in Rafa and treat it differently than the rest of Gaza, I'm going to cut off American weapons.
This was major because it represented the Biden Administration's own acknowledgement, their persuasion campaign wasn't enough to change Israeli behavior, and they might have to threaten actual tangible consequences like withholding bombs. I focus on that red line moment because what happened then, Noelle, is that the Biden administration was feckless, callous, and ultimately, frankly, dishonest about what happened in Rafah once Israel went in cross-based. Well, I think that's a good thing.
Lames rage through a camp for displaced Palestinians. Автор анізраїлі арстрік тригері а масів блаze. Цивилінис берт алив And children decapitated. Well how does this not violate the red line and put the prison weight out? As I said, we don't want to see a major ground operation. We haven't seen that at this point. The Biden administration notified lawmakers that it is sending more than one billion dollars in tank ammunition, tactical vehicles, and mortar rounds to Israel.
You had the Biden administration both failed to apply the consequences they themselves promised, but actually help Israel twist the meaning of President Biden's own red line, really undermining not just American credibility, but a lot of hope among Palestinians, to a degree among government officials at the State Department and beyond, who had felt finally Biden's policy might change and truly restrain Israel.
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