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US, Israel Move to Resolve Weapons Shipment Dispute as Attention Turns to Looming Hezbollah Conflict
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as they make brief statements to the media at The Kirya, Israel’s Ministry of Defense, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 16, 2023. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Pool via REUTERS
The United States and Israel have taken steps to resolve some of the issues hampering weapons shipments from the US to the Jewish state, but at least one bomb delivery is still being blocked as the world’s focus increasingly shifts from Gaza to a potential Israeli conflict with the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant arrived in Washington this week to meet with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, escalating tensions with Hezbollah, and potentially resuming all scheduled weapons transfers to the Jewish state.
US arms transfers to Israel have slowed in recent months as international scrutiny over the Jewish state’s war in Gaza has intensified. The Biden administration paused a shipment of 2,000 lb bombs to Israel in an attempt to discourage the country from conducting extensive military operations in the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, a step that Israel insists is necessary to complete the dismantling of the remaining Hamas battalions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu further complicated matters after he released a video publicly accusing the Biden administration of withholding arms shipments and indicating he was promised by Blinken that Washington would resolve the delays. The video incensed the White House, throwing a wrench in ongoing negotiations with Israel to resume weapons transfers. The video also ignited a feud between Netanyahu and Gallant, with the defense minister’s aides claiming the prime minister released the video to sabotage Gallant’s upcoming meeting with US officials.
Resuming weapons shipments could prove critical for Israel as it prepares to potentially ramp up military operations against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, like Hamas, is an Islamist terrorist organization backed by Iran.
In Israel’s north, Hezbollah terrorists have been firing rockets at Israel daily from southern Lebanon since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, leading Israeli forces to strike back. Tensions have been escalating between both sides, fueling concerns that the conflict in Gaza — the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas to Israel’s south — could escalate into a regional conflict.
More than 80,000 Israelis have evacuated Israel’s north and been unable to return to their homes. The majority of those spent the past eight months residing in hotels in safer areas of the country.
While in Washington, DC, Gallant warned on Wednesday that the Jewish state is prepared to take Lebanon “back to the stone age” if it does not cease its attacks.
“We do not want war, but we are preparing for every scenario,” Gallant told reporters. “Hezbollah understands very well that we can inflict massive damage in Lebanon if a war is launched.”
The Biden administration has attempted to ease tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, wishing not see the conflict escalate into a full-scale war. Austin met with Gallant on Tuesday to collaborate on how to “de-escalate tensions along the Israel-Lebanon border.” The US defense chief warned that intensifying provocations against Israel could “threaten to drag the Israeli and Lebanese people into a war that neither of them wants, and that such a war would be catastrophic for Lebanon and it would be devastating for innocent Israeli and Lebanese civilians.”
Hezbollah wields significant political and military influence across Hezbollah.
The post US, Israel Move to Resolve Weapons Shipment Dispute as Attention Turns to Looming Hezbollah Conflict first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.