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Anti-Israel Activists, Lawmakers Largely Silent After US Waives Human Rights Conditions on Military Aid to Egypt
People take part in pro-Hamas protest in Brussels, Belgium, Nov. 11, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
After the US decided to waive human rights conditions in order to send military aid to Egypt, many of the prominent advocates of an arms embargo on weapons sales to Israel remained silent, raising questions about consistency.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it would override human rights concerns in order to send $1.3 billion in military to Egypt. This is the first time the Biden administration has sent the full amount of assistance since it took power in 2021, as a portion of the aid is conditional.
A review of social media posts by The Algemeiner found that many of the most outspoken supporters of imposing a US arms embargo on Israel have remained silent regarding Washington waiving human rights conditions on Egypt’s aid.
US Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), have not commented on the waiving of human rights conditions, despite making human rights as it relates to foreign policy a central theme of their respective terms recently. Major anti-Israel groups such as Code Pink have also not spoken against the decision on Egypt, despite their intense focus on foreign affairs issues.
The fact that such leaders and organizations have remained silent on the issue — yet been so vocal when it comes to opposing Israel — raises questions about whether their true motivations have been concern with human rights or if they were primarily political, performative, or motivated by a particular animus or a double standard toward Israel.
Some, however, have remained more consistent.
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) spoke out against the move on X/Twitter.
“It should be simple: don’t sell arms to anyone who violates human rights,” she wrote. “We should not be sending this aid to one of the worst human rights abusers in the world. Not only have they failed to make clear progress on releasing political prisoners, they were caught bribing the former Chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.”
Omar was referring to US Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) being convicted in July of accepting bribes of gold and cash from three New Jersey businessmen and acting as an agent for the Egyptian government.
Human Rights Watch, which has been intensely critical of Israel both during the current war with Hamas and prior to it as well, also criticized the US’s decision. “The decision to roll through them might seem to serve a short-term gain but only adds to impunity for the Egyptian government as it continues its assault on its own population,” its Washington director said. “Rights protections for the Egyptian people are the point of these congressional conditions.”
Human Rights Watch noted that “in May 2024, a prominent opposition leader was imprisoned for trying to challenge President [Abdel Farrah el-] Sisi in the December 2023 elections. In recent weeks, Egyptian authorities arbitrarily detained and referred for prosecution at least four critics of the government for exercising their freedom of expression.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “This decision is important to advancing regional peace and Egypt’s specific and ongoing contributions to US national security priorities, particularly to finalize a ceasefire agreement for Gaza, bring the hostages home, surge humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in need, and help bring an enduring end to the Israel-Hamas conflict.”
There had previously been concern that Egypt was helping or at least not trying to stop Hamas from using the Gaza-Egypt border to smuggle weapons as well.
However, it was recently discovered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that none of the nine tunnels Israel identified in Gaza as crossing into Egypt were currently operational, suggesting Egypt had taken some steps to stop the smuggling.
Claims that such tunnels were operational were key in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s argument that it was important to take — and retain — the Philadelphi Corridor on Gaza’s border with Egypt. The issue became a major sticking point in the failure to achieve a hostage deal last month.
The post Anti-Israel Activists, Lawmakers Largely Silent After US Waives Human Rights Conditions on Military Aid to Egypt first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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