XPost: alt.atheism, can.politics, alt.politics.democrats.d   
   XPost: alt.food.fast-food   
   From: Dawn.Belle.Flood@gmail.com   
      
   On 3/28/2024 7:44 PM, NefeshBarYochai wrote:   
   > by JACK MIRKINSON   
   >   
   > Since Israel’s campaign of death began, President Joe Biden has   
   > perfected the art of cognitive dissonance, planting story after story   
   > about his ever-increasing “frustration” with Israeli Prime Minister   
   > Benjamin Netanyahu while continuing to send Israel the bombs it is   
   > using against the people of Gaza. But the past seven days have taken   
   > this absurdity to new levels. That’s because this was the week when we   
   > saw both Biden’s most dramatic attempts to appear to be radically   
   > shifting his approach and the most dramatic evidence of just how   
   > deeply the United States is helping to perpetuate this war.   
   >   
   > First, the attempts to telegraph that change is happening: Biden used   
   > his State of the Union address to announce that the United States   
   > would be building a pier off the Gaza coast so that it could deliver   
   > aid to the millions of people who are either being massacred or left   
   > to starve to death due to Israel’s unceasing bombardment and total   
   > siege of the region. He was then filmed telling Senator Michael Bennet   
   > that he was going to have a “come to Jesus meeting” with Netanyahu,   
   > though he immediately undercut the seemingly accidental nature of the   
   > broadcast by adding, “I’m on a hot mic here. Good.”   
   >   
   > On Saturday, Biden went further, telling MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart   
   > that Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel” and that   
   > an Israeli invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where 1.4   
   > million Palestinians are trapped, would be a “red line.” All of this   
   > was enough to prompt some of the White House’s more sycophantic   
   > chroniclers, such as Axios reporter Barak Ravid, to proclaim that   
   > Biden was “breaking” with Netanyahu.   
   >   
   > And it’s true that these moves could seem like an encouraging signal   
   > about his willingness to put some kind of pressure on Israel.   
   >   
   > But wait, what’s that sound? That would be the other shoe dropping.   
   > The most important news about the American handling of the war in the   
   > past week could be found not in any of the aforementioned, highly   
   > choreographed moments, but in a pair of reports on Tuesday in The   
   > Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, in which the outlets   
   > revealed that not only has the United States been transferring vast   
   > amounts of weapons to Israel, but that it has been doing so in a way   
   > deliberately designed to evade public scrutiny.   
   >   
   > According to the reports, the US has approved more than 100 arms sales   
   > to Israel since October 7, constituting what the Journal called “tens   
   > of thousands” of weapons. But the Biden administration has revealed   
   > only two of those deals to Congress. The rest have been masked by one   
   > of the oldest shady financial tricks in the books, as the Post   
   > explained:   
   >   
   > [Th]e weapons transfers were processed without any public debate   
   > because each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the   
   > executive branch to individually notify Congress, according to U.S.   
   > officials and lawmakers who, like others, spoke on the condition of   
   > anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter.   
   >   
   > […] “That’s an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a   
   > pretty short amount of time, which really strongly suggests that the   
   > Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of U.S.   
   > support,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration   
   > official and current president of Refugees International.   
   >   
   > So let’s recap. Biden is publicly lamenting the scale of death in   
   > Gaza, going after Netanyahu, and pledging to build a maritime aid   
   > corridor to get around Israel’s siege. But Netanyahu’s ability to   
   > carry out that level of carnage, and impose such an inhumane siege, is   
   > dependent on the continued flow of weapons to Israel from the   
   > government headed by… Biden. Or, to put it more succinctly: The US   
   > government is now making elaborate plans to ameliorate a humanitarian   
   > catastrophe that would not exist without its own bombs.   
   >   
   > When you add the fact that Biden’s government is not only sending   
   > Israel weapons but is so eager to do so that it is purposefully   
   > skirting congressional oversight and public accountability, it all   
   > gets even more ludicrous. We’re no longer in a simple “this makes no   
   > sense” situation. Instead, we’ve arrived at a Twilight Zone “if I try   
   > to rationalize this, it will tear a hole in the fabric of space and   
   > time” situation. It’s as if you kept secretly handing an arsonist   
   > gasoline and matches, then showed up five minutes later with the   
   > firefighters, read out a statement about how unconscionable arson is,   
   > and announced that you were taking major steps to help the survivors.   
   >   
   > Things get more maddening when you look at the nature of the American   
   > aid effort. That pier Biden announced? The Pentagon says it could take   
   > up to two months to build. There is a famine happening right now in   
   > Gaza, not two months from now. And the US won’t even give assurances   
   > that Israel will be prevented from firing on Palestinians trying to   
   > retrieve American aid. There are other agencies on the ground, but the   
   > US is in the way there too. It has cut off funding to UNWRA, the main   
   > relief organization in Gaza, on dubious evidence that the UN now   
   > claims was based in part on evidence obtained through torture.   
   >   
   > These loopholes and contradictions have become so glaring that people   
   > you might normally expect to overlook them are unable to. A recent   
   > report in The New York Times, for instance, delicately noted that “the   
   > United States finds itself on both sides of the war in a way, arming   
   > the Israelis while trying to care for those hurt as a result.” And   
   > Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen told The New Yorker, “I really   
   > haven’t heard a good response to the question of why we should not   
   > apply existing U.S. law…to insure that U.S. military assistance is   
   > used in accordance with our values.”   
   >   
   > Nobody has heard a good response—and that’s because there isn’t one!   
   > It’s shameless hypocrisy from Biden all the way down.   
   >   
   >   
      
   As I already posted in alt.atheism, the so-called Holy Land will, in a   
   century or two (perhaps in a few decades), be sea-bottom.   
      
   What then??   
      
   Dawn   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)