XPost: talk.politics.misc, soc.culture.usa, talk.politics.guns   
   XPost: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic   
   From: seaviews7@yahoo.com   
      
   On 3/29/2024 3:35 PM, Rockinghorse Winner scribbled:   
   > On 2024-03-29, NefeshBarYochai  opined as follows:   
   >> 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.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >   
   > Yes, we must vote for Trump in November and send Biden a clear lesson. Thank   
      
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