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In Washington, calls for a ceasefire are loud, but not pervasive or, to Biden, persuasive
WASHINGTON (JTA) — At about 11 a.m. Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration favored “humanitarian pauses” so that assistance could reach Gaza Palestinians caught in Israel’s war with Hamas.
Left-wing social media lit up: Until Blinken’s comments, made to the United Nations Security Council, the Biden administration had rejected calls for a ceasefire.
“The tide is turning — the Biden administration is beginning to recognize that this war will only bring more death and suffering for Palestinians and Israelis,” IfNotNow, a left-wing Jewish group that accuses Israel of “genocide” and has led protests for a ceasefire, said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Blinken’s comments were a reversal of sorts. Just last week the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause.” But shortly after Blinken spoke, John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, threw cold water on any notion of U.S. support for a ceasefire.
“We’re going to continue to make sure Israel has the tools and the capabilities that they need to defend themselves,” he said just after 1 p.m., when asked at the daily White House press briefing about the prospects of a ceasefire. “A ceasefire right now really only benefits Hamas.”
Given Kirby’s statement, it appeared Blinken’s support for “humanitarian pauses” meant just that — short breaks in the fighting so food, water and medical assistance could reach people in need, nothing more. “We want to see all measure of protection for civilians. Pauses in operation [are] a tool and a tactic that can do that for temporary periods of time,” Kirby said. “That is not the same as saying a ceasefire.”
Calls for a ceasefire from some progressives, including Jewish groups, have been loud and insistent. They are backed by nearly two dozen progressive members of Congress, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish.
But Kirby’s forceful rejection shows how ineffective those demands have been in the face of a Biden administration steadfast in its support for Israel, as well as a large majority of Congress that opposes a ceasefire.
Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said she has counted 23 Democrats in the House and Senate who have called for a ceasefire, out of 263 overall. Congressional Republicans are opposed almost wall-to-wall to a ceasefire.
“The overwhelming majority — more than 90% of all Democrats in the Senate and the House — stand with the president on the issue of a ceasefire,” Soifer said, although she noted that she has only been tracking those explicitly in favor of a ceasefire, and not those explicitly opposed.
Hamas broke a 2021 ceasefire when it launched its attack on Israel Oct. 7, killing more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, wounding thousands and abducting more than 200. Israel’s ensuing war on Hamas has killed more than 5,000 people, Gaza’s Hamas-controlled health ministry says. It is not clear how many of those casualties are civilians, though a significant number are children.
A new ceasefire would aim to end all combat, including Israeli airstrikes and Hamas rocket launches, as well as all cross-border infiltration between Gaza and Israel. It would also leave Hamas in control of Gaza. Israel rejects those terms, saying the return of the hostages and the dismantling of Hamas must come first. A ceasefire would also nix a potential ground invasion by Israel that hopes to achieve those ends.
Biden has opposed a ceasefire because he, like Israel, believes Hamas must be permanently debilitated. He has called on Congress to deliver more than $10 billion in defense assistance to Israel. He said on Monday that at a minimum, the hostages should be released before a ceasefire is countenanced.
“We should have those hostages released and then we can talk,” he told a reporter shouting out a question about a ceasefire at a White House event.
Sanders, the de facto leader of progressives in Congress, was among the first to make the call for a ceasefire.
“The bombs and missiles from both sides must end, massive humanitarian aid must be rushed to Gaza, and the hostages must be returned to their families,” Sanders said in an Oct. 17 statement.
Members of the Squad, the group of House progressives, joined last week’s rally at the Capitol, which was led by the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace along with IfNotNow, and culminated in arrests.
J Street, the liberal Jewish Israel lobby that is influential among Democrats, is not joining the calls. “Our position is, we have not called for a ceasefire,” said Logan Bayroff, J Street’s spokesman. “Our position is, Israel has the right to defend itself in accordance with international law.”
The group last week urged lawmakers to sign a letter spearheaded by three Jewish House Democrats wholeheartedly backing Biden’s policy on the war. The letter did not explicitly oppose a ceasefire. But by garnering a majority of the caucus — 131 signatures, including every Jewish House Democrat — it created a firewall against demands for a ceasefire when taken in combination with Republican votes.
The ceasefire calls have at times been intensely personal. On Tuesday, nearly 300 veterans of Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns signed a letter and made a video urging him to introduce legislation in the Senate matching a resolution in the House that calls for a ceasefire. The House resolution, sponsored by Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri, has so far garnered just 18 cosponsors. “Many of us, your former staff, share your Jewish heritage,” the letter to Sanders said.
IfNotNow, which backed the letter, said Sanders needed to do more. Eva Borgwardt, the group’s spokeswoman said in an email, “We need him to stay true to his legacy of principled, antiwar leadership now.”
Also on Tuesday, the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council effectively expelled a constituent, the Boston Workers Circle, after it joined with anti-Zionist groups at a pro-ceasefire rally that also accused Israel of “genocide.”
The Intercept reported on Oct. 13 that J Street threatened to pull support from lawmakers who failed to join a separate resolution condemning Hamas — one that has so far garnered 425 cosponsors out of 434 members of Congress. (The resolution has yet to reach the floor because the Republican majority has been floundering in its attempt to elect a speaker.)
Bayroff denied that report. J Street’s political action committee is still raising money for New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who is a member of the Squad and one of the holdouts. Bayroff said he did not see the disagreement over the ceasefire creating long-term rifts between J Street and its progressive allies in Congress. The group does not endorse most other members of the Squad, including Tlaib, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush.
“We appreciate that views of members of Congress and folks will continue to evolve and we’re not looking for everybody to be marching in ideological lockstep right now, or to be cracking down on folks with slightly different opinions,” Bayroff said. “We certainly believe that every single one of our endorses needs to condemn or have condemned what Hamas has done in no uncertain terms.”
Bowman condemned the attack almost immediately but did not join a letter signed by more than half of House Democrats, including some prominent critics of Israel, praising Biden’s handling of the crisis.
Soifer, who noted that JDCA’s affiliated PAC did not endorse and has no plans to endorse any of the 23 Democrats calling for a ceasefire, agreed that no intra-party rift was in the offing, because the issue of a ceasefire was a difference of policy, not philosophy.
Soifer nonetheless said Tlaib should be considered as having crossed a red line and as having sowed danger for the Jewish community. Tlaib has not forcefully condemned Hamas, Soifer said, and has not retracted claims that Israel bombed a hospital, even though experts have now assessed that the explosion was caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.
U.S. officials strengthened their assessment on Tuesday to say they believed with “high certainty” that a Palestinian rocket caused the blast.
“It was dangerous because it was a lie,” Soifer said. “Once that was clear, as a U.S. policymaker and a member of Congress, she should clarify her remarks. And she chooses not to. So it’s dangerous to perpetuate that lie, especially at this incredibly volatile time.”
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Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, and Houthi media said three people were killed.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said in a statement.
The Israeli military said that in addition to striking the airport, it also hit military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said two people were killed in the strikes on the airport and one person was killed in the port hits, while 11 others were wounded in the attacks.
There was no comment from the Houthis, who have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attacks that Israel will continue its mission until it is complete: “We are determined to sever this terror arm of Iran’s axis.”
The prime minister has been strengthened at home by the Israeli military’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and by its destruction of most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were also reported by Al Masirah TV.
Tedros said he had been in Yemen to negotiate the release of detained UN staff detainees and to assess the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa … the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” he said in a statement.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues were safe.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the incident.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel‘s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel‘s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
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Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew. Photo: Alchetron.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for casting doubt on a new report claiming that famine has gripped northern Gaza.
The controversial Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday slammed Lew for his “callous dismissal” of the recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report accusing Israel of inflicting famine on the Gaza Strip. The organization subsequently asserted that Israel had perpetrated an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan,’” CAIR said in a statement.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling, and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza,” the Washington, DC-based group continued.
On Monday, FEWS Net, a US-created provider of warning and analysis on food insecurity, released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in the area without sufficient access to food.
“Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians in the beleaguered enclave, the report stated.
Lew subsequently issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
Following Lew’s repudiation, FEWS NET quietly removed the report on Wednesday, sparking outrage among supporters of the pro-Palestinian cause.
“We ask FEWS NET not to submit to the bullying of genocide supporters and to again make its report available to the public,” CAIR said in its statement.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has been repeatedly accused of inflicting famine in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
This is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by FEWS Net that a famine had taken hold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
Meanwhile, CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the onset of the Gaza war last October.
CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the Oct. 7 atrocities. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage across southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
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Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
The international Jewish civil rights organization legally representing more than 50 victims of the attack on Israeli soccer fans that took place in Amsterdam last month has joined many voices in lambasting a Dutch court for what they described as a mild punishment for the attackers.
“These sentences are an insult to the victims and a stain on the Dutch legal system,” The Lawfare Project’s founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “Allowing individuals who coordinated and celebrated acts of violence to walk away with minimal consequences diminishes the rule of law and undermines trust in the judicial process. If this is the response to such blatant antisemitism, what hope is there for deterring future offenders or safeguarding the Jewish community.”
On Tuesday, a district court in Amsterdam sentenced five men for their participation in the violent attacks in the Dutch city against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. The premeditated and coordinated violence took place on the night of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of Nov 8, before and after Maccabi Tel Aviv competed against the Dutch soccer team Ajax in a UEFA Europa League match. The five suspects were sentenced to up to 100 hours of community service and up to six months in prison.
The attackers were found guilty of public violence, which included kicking an individual lying on the ground, and inciting the violence by calling on members of a WhatsApp group chat to gather and attack Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. One man sentenced on Tuesday who had a “leading role” in the violence, according to prosecutors, was given the longest sentence — six months in prison.
“As someone who witnessed these trials firsthand, I am deeply disheartened by the leniency of these sentences,” added Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at The Lawfare Project. “The violent, coordinated attacks against Jews in Amsterdam are among the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe. These light sentences fail to reflect the gravity of these crimes and do little to deliver justice to the victims who are left traumatized and unheard. Even more troubling, they set a dangerous precedent, signaling to future offenders that such horrific acts of violence will not be met with serious consequences.”
The Lawfare Project said on Wednesday that it is representing over 50 victims of the Amsterdam attacks. It has also secured for their clients a local counsel — Peter Plasman, who is a partner at the Amsterdam-based law firm Kötter L’Homme Plasman — to represent them in the Netherlands. The Lawfare Project aims to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people around the world through legal action.
Others who have criticized the Dutch court for its sentencing of the five men on Tuesday included Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum; Tal-Or Cohen, the founder and CEO of CyberWell; and The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
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