The Biden administration has just sent a letter to Israel warning that if they don’t improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza within 30 days, the US may withhold weapons transfers to Israel.
The letter doesn’t say that explicitly, but it does refer to “implications for U.S. policy under NSM-20 and relevant U.S. law.” NSM-20 deals with “Safeguards and Accountability With Respect to Transferred Defense Articles and Defense Services”
In a nutshell, they are threatening to withhold these Defense ‘articles and services’ if Israel doesn’t comply.
Here’s the report:
🚨🇺🇸🇮🇱Secretary of State Blinken & Secretary of Defense Austin sent a letter on Monday to Israel demanding it takes steps within 30 days to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza in order to avoid consequences in U.S. law for U.S. milirary aid to Israel. See letter here: pic.twitter.com/N9DDMqsL7u
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) October 15, 2024
These are the main pages that matter:
Here’s more from Ynet News:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have warned Israel that if it does not allow the transfer of American humanitarian aid to Gaza within 30 days, the U.S. may halt military assistance. The message was delivered to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer through an official document.
The American officials threatened to invoke a national security memorandum issued in March which set conditions for continued U.S. military support to Israel, including allowing unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid. Despite recent claims by Israel that it is not preventing aid, including the entry of 30 trucks of food into northern Gaza on Monday, the U.S. remains concerned about restrictions.
Washington has demanded concrete steps from Israel within 30 days, warning that failure to comply could impact future military aid. This comes as the U.S. continues to delay shipments of heavy bombs to Israel.
Does Joe and Kamla and their hack officials not get that Israel is fighting an existential war against enemies that want to destroy them? Hezbollah has been firing missiles into Israel daily for over a year and Iran just fired some 200 missiles into Israel within the last two weeks. They’ve got quite a lot on their plate right now and to put them under this kind of deadline seems a bit extreme, especially when Israel says they aren’t blocking aid trucks from getting into the country.
This administration seems opposed to Israel more frequently than they are an ally, especially attaching these heavy demands on them to get the aid we should be giving them freely.
I’m not saying that the US shouldn’t be encouraging Israel to do certain things, but by threatening weapons and other military assistance at a time when they are fighting just to exist is quite simply abominable and not something a strong ally should even consider doing.
