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US officials deny pressing Israel for a war ‘deadline,’ but differences between the two are emerging
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A top U.S. official denied reports that the Biden administration has set a deadline for Israel to end its war with Hamas. But U.S. officials are becoming more open and outspoken about differences between the two allies over the war’s conduct.
“We’re not in the business of being that prescriptive with a core partner and ally who has suffered such an egregious, appalling terrorist attack and who is responding in our view with what is absolutely necessary in their responsibility to reduce the threat to their own civilian population,” Jon Finer, a deputy national security adviser, said Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington, D.C.. “In terms of telling them, ‘You must stop at this moment,’ that’s not the way we conduct our business.”
Finer spoke on the same day that Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed disappointment in Israel’s conduct of the war in the week since a pause in fighting ended, describing a “gap” between what Israeli officials pledged to him when he visited the country during the pause, and what he sees happening now. Israel is now focusing its military campaign on the city of Khan Younis in Gaza’s south, following its capture of Gaza City in the north.
“As we stand here almost a week into this campaign in the south after the end of the humanitarian pause, it is imperative – it remains imperative – that Israel put a premium on civilian protection, and there does remain a gap between exactly what I said when I was there, the intent to protect civilians, and the actual results that we’re seeing on the ground,” he said at a press conference with his British counterpart, David Cameron.
Biden also is making his frustration with Israel’s government more apparent, saying in an unusually detailed readout of his phone call Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he told the prime minister that Israel needed to allow in “much more” humanitarian assistance.
A number of Middle East-focused media outlets, including Times of Israel and Al Monitor, have said that top U.S. officials want the war over within weeks.
Since Hamas invaded Israel on Oct. 7, launching the war, President Joe Biden has rejected calls for a ceasefire. He has robustly backed Israel’s war aims of removing Hamas from power and returning the more than 240 hostages it abducted. Hamas returned more than 100 hostages during a recent seven-day pause in the fighting during which Israel released hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners. In addition to diplomatic backing and sending warships to the region to deter broader attacks on Israel, Biden has asked Congress for $14 billion in emergency funding for the country that has yet to be approved.
But Biden has also been under increasing pressure from progressives in his party who favor a ceasefire. During the break in fighting, top officials including Blinken pressed Israel to pursue the war with more precision and less ferocity in Gaza’s south than it had in the north.
Israel resumed air strikes and ground maneuvers after the pause. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 17,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, including thousands of children. That number does not differentiate between combatants and civilians and does not specify those killed by misfired rockets aimed at Israel. Hamas terrorists killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on Oct. 7, when it launched the war. Since then, nearly 100 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the fighting.
Biden, in his readout of the call with Netanyahu, focused on the need for more humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip.
“The President underscored the importance of the continuous and sustained flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the readout said. “He welcomed the recent Israeli decision to ensure that fuel levels will meet requisite needs, but stressed that much more assistance was urgently required across the board.”
Biden also was not satisfied with Israel’s handling of extremist settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, which have spiked. His administration criticized Netanyahu earlier this week over the issue when it announced that it would ban entry to Israeli settlers and Palestinians who harm “peace, security, or stability in the West Bank.”
“President Biden reiterated his concern about extremist violence committed against Palestinians and the need to increase stability in the West Bank,” the readout said.
Netanyahu has seized upon the seasonal message of Hanukkah to make clear that Israel is sticking to the goal of removing Hamas from power and returning the hostages.
“We are currently deep inside the Gaza Strip,” he said, likening Israeli soldiers to the ancient Maccabees.. “This enemy will not break us up — we will break it up. This enemy will not wipe us out, we will wipe it out. This enemy will not overcome us, we will overcome it. This is being carried out day by day and night by night, and we will do it until the end.”
There also are more evident differences between the governments about what happens the day after the war ends. Netanyahu has said that under no circumstances will he transfer authority to the Palestinian Authority, which he does not trust, although the governments continue to cooperate to stem an intensification of violence in the West Bank. Blinken says the Biden administration favors a P.A. role. The Palestinian Authority governs day-to-day affairs in Palestinian population centers in the West Bank.
“We discussed in our meeting how that’s about how we build up and revitalize the Palestinian Authority, it’s about how we stand up a plan for what happens after this operation is over,” Blinken said, describing his meeting with Cameron.
The administration on Friday appeared to walk back its criticism of Israel, at least tonally. John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, said in a briefing with reporters that Israel appeared to be applying more care to its operations in the south, endeavoring to forewarn civilians of its actions so they can get to safer ground.
“They have in fact taken some actions to try to be more careful,” Kirby said. “They have been publishing a map of where people can go and not go, that is the definition of pulling your punches.” He added, however: “More can be done.”
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Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a news conference, outside the US Capitol in Washington, DC, April 10, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Jim Bourg
US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has been slapped with an ethics complaint by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative watchdog group, for holding an event with former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Last weekend, Khaire took the stage with Omar in support of her reelection campaign. AAF argued Khaire’s presence at Omar’s campaign rally constituted a violation of the US Federal Election Campaign Act and demanded the congresswoman step down from office.
“We are deeply concerned by Ilhan Omar’s illegal campaign rally with the former prime minister of Somalia. Omar already has a long history of statements indicating her disdain for America and allegiance to Somalia, but this goes beyond statements,” the AAF wrote.
“Now her campaign has taken action to involve a foreign leader in an American election. She must resign immediately and return every dollar raised for her at this disgraceful rally,” the watchdog continued.
The organization argued Omar potentially committed two infractions against the Federal Election Campaign Act.
First, AAF alleged that the congresswoman “knowingly accepted former Somalia Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire’s services at her campaign events.” They asserted this action exceeded the “limited volunteer services permitted by a foreign national and involves impermissible decision-making.”
Second, the watchdog claimed that Khaire was possibly “compensated by a prohibited source.” The organization suggested that Ka Joog, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit that focuses on “empowering Somali American youth,” organized and funded Khaire’s trip to America. AAF argued that Omar likely “knowingly accepted a corporate contribution associated with Mr. Khaire’s travel and lodging costs” with the goal of boosting voter turnout among Minnesota’s Somali-American community.
During Omar’s campaign rally in Minnesota last weekend, Khaire gave an impassioned speech, urging the audience to vote for the congresswoman.
“Support her with your votes, tell your neighbors and friends, and anyone you know to come out and support Ilhan Omar,” Khaire said. “And knock on every door you can so that she can be re-elected.”
Khaire then added, “Ilhan’s interests aren’t those of Minnesota or the American people but those of Somalia.”
“No one is above the law — even members of the Squad” of far-left lawmakers in the US House, AAF president Thomas Jones wrote in a statement. “Not only were Khaire’s comments about Omar deeply disturbing, but the rally was also a blatant violation of US election laws. Omar must resign immediately and return every dollar raised by Khaire for her campaign.”
Omar’s campaign counsel David Mitrani denied that the congresswoman violated any elections laws.
“This ethics complaint is another attempt by the far-right to smear the congresswoman,” Mitrani told the New York Post.
“Congresswoman Omar’s campaign had absolutely no involvement in requesting, coordinating, or facilitating Mr Khaire’s appearance or his comments, and accordingly there was no violation of law,” he continued.
Khaire’s claim that Omar’s “interests” are with Somalia rather than the American people raised eyebrows, with critics pointing out that she has previously criticized the American Jewish community for supposedly maintaining “allegiance” to the government of Israel.
“I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” Omar said during a 2019 speech in reference to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying organization aimed at fostering a closer US-Israel relationship.
“Accusing Jews of harboring dual loyalty has a long, violent, sordid history,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, in response to Omar’s comments.
During her five-year stretch as a US representative, Omar has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics, repeatedly accusing the Jewish state of enacting “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. She has supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, an initiative which seeks to economically punish and isolate the Jewish state as the first step toward its elimination.
The congresswoman came under fire after waiting a whole two days to comment on Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1200 people across southern Israel. Despite slow-walking a condemnation of Hamas’ atrocities, she was one of the first congresspeople to call for Israel to implement a “ceasefire” in the Gaza strip.
Omar enraged both Democratic and Republican lawmakers after she referred to Jewish college students as being either “pro-genocide or anti-genocide” while visiting Columbia University in April.
The post Ilhan Omar Slapped With Ethics Complaint From Conservative Watchdog Over Holding Rally With Ex-Somali PM first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager
Samuel Woodward, recently convicted of the hate crime murder of 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein, a gay Jewish teenager from California. Photo: Orange County Sheriff’s Office
A jury in Orange County, California on Wednesday convicted a neo-Nazi of the hate-crime murder of a gay Jewish teenager he lured to the woods under the false pretense of a furtive hook-up.
According to court documents, Samuel Woodward — a member of the Neo-Nazi group the Atomwaffen Division — stabbed 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student Blaze Bernstein over two dozen times in 2018 after pretending in a series of Tinder messages to be interested in a first-time homosexual encounter.
Bernstein was unaware of Woodward’s paranoiac and hateful far-right ideology, however. The now 26-year-old Woodward had withdrawn from college to join the Atomwaffen Division — whose members have been linked to several other murders, including a young man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents — idolized Adolf Hitler, and would spend hours on Grindr searching for gay men to humiliate and “ghost,” ceasing all contact with them after posing as a coquettish “bicurious” Catholic.
“I tell sodomites that I’m bi-curious, which makes them want to ‘convert’ me,” Woodward said in his diary quoted by The Los Angeles Times. “Get them hooked by acting coy, maybe then send them a pic or two, beat around the bus and pretend to tell them that I like them and then kabam, I either un-friend them or tell them they have been pranked, ha ha.”
In another entry, Woodward wrote, “They think they are going to get hate crimed [sic] and it scares the s— out of them.”
On the day of the killing, Woodward agreed to drive Bernstein to Borrego Park in Foothill Ranch, where he stabbed him as many as 30 times and buried him in a “shallow grave,” according to various reports. He never denied his guilt, but in court his attorneys resorted to blaming the crime on his being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome and feeling conflicted about his sexuality, LA Times reported. As the trial progressed, his attorneys also made multiple attempts to decouple Woodward’s Nazism from the murder, arguing that it was not a hate crime and that no mention of his trove of fascist paraphernalia and antisemitic and homophobic views should be uttered in court.
“No verdict can bring back Blaze. He was an amazing human and humanitarian and a person we were greatly looking forward to having in our lives, seeing wondrous things from him as his young life unfolded” the family of the victim, who has been described by all who knew him as amiable and talented, said in a statement shared by ABC News. “From this funny, articulate, kind, intelligent, caring, and brilliant scientist, artist, writer, chef, and son, there will never be anyone quite like him. His gifts will never be realized or shared now.”
With Wednesday’s guilty verdict, Woodward may never be free again. He faces life in prison without parole at his sentencing on Oct. 25.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post California Jury Convicts Neo-Nazi Who Brutally Murdered Gay Jewish Teenager first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C.
Did the protesters even realize who would be on the field when they showed up?
The post Opinion: The folly of pro-Palestinian protesters screaming at Jewish teenage girls playing softball in Surrey, B.C. appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.