RSS
Cori Bush Says She Wants to See Arms Embargo Placed on Israel, Regrets Not Running for President
US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) raises her fist as US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses a pro-Hamas demonstration in Washington, DC. Photo: Reuters/Allison Bailey
US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) lamented not running for president during a new interview, saying that she wants to see the White House place an arms embargo on Israel.
Bush chatted with members of the Uncommitted Movement during the “Not Another Bomb” digital roll call on Thursday. Uncommitted, an initiative which has encouraged Democrats not to support presidential nominee Kamala Harris unless she adopts anti-Israel policies, hosted an event to discuss strategies on how to fracture the relationship between America and the Jewish state.
During the discussion, Bush suggested that the Harris campaign has not been sufficiently adversarial toward Israel. However, Bush added that she does not feel justified in complaining about their unwillingness to agree to an “arms embargo now” on the Jewish state, citing her own decision not to “step up” and launch a presidential campaign.
“But the thing is, I had to check my own self and say, ‘You know what? While you’re asking for all of these things from someone else, you didn’t step up to the run. You want things that you would’ve bought to the table. But you didn’t step up. So how dare you want a perfect person? Like, you wanted yourself,” Bush said.
Bush, an anti-Israel firebrand, also suggested that pro-Palestinian organizers would have a harder time making progress under a Donald Trump presidency.
Bush argued that Trump’s “talk about rounding up and deporting pro-Palestine protesters” would render anti-Israel activists unable “to do as much work to save the people of Gaza.” Bush claimed that the “oppression” of a Trump presidency would neutralize the ability of protesters to push for change in society.
“How much capacity will we have to help abroad, as we are fighting here?” Bush asked. “What harm will we have to suffer and live through with a Donald Trump presidency as we are still trying to fight for the people of Gaza?”
Bush has established herself as one of the most vocal critics of Israel in the US Congress. Only nine days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel, Bush called for an “immediate ceasefire” between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group. As the war dragged on, Bush’s rhetoric toward Israel sharpened, with the congresswoman accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza and “apartheid” in the West Bank. Bush has also accused Israel of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza without providing evidence.
Bush’s consistent anti-Israel rhetoric following Oct. 7 galvanized scores of St. Louis area Jews to throw their support behind her Democratic primary opponent, St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, spent $8.5 million to help secure Bush’s ouster from Congress. The congresswoman lost her bid for re-election earlier in August to Bell, who unlike Bush has expressed support for the Jewish state’s right to defend itself from Hamas’s terrorism.
In her concession speech, Bush blamed her loss on AIPAC, vowing to destroy their “kingdom.”
The post Cori Bush Says She Wants to See Arms Embargo Placed on Israel, Regrets Not Running for President first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.