Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said Friday that military aid to Israel should continue in a departure from the White House position.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Cardin said he disagreed with President Biden, who has threatened to withhold offensive aid from Israel if it proceeds with a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where millions of Palestinians have sought refuge from the war.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018While the most recent report regarding Israel under the NSM-20 has raised concerns, I agree with its assessment that Israel has not violated International Humanitarian Law and that military assistance to support Israel\u2019s security remains in the U.S. interest and should continue,\u2019 Cardin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018In this regard, I differ with President Biden\u2019s recent decision,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cardin\u2019s statement came in response to a State Department report released Friday, which raised \u2018serious concerns\u2019 based on credible U.N. and non-governmental sources about alleged human rights violations by Israeli forces. The report documented credible allegations of human rights abuses by Israeli security forces, \u2018including arbitrary or unlawful killings, enforced disappearance, torture, and serious abuses in conflict.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
The State Department report also said an estimated 34,700 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict with Israel since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack, citing figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health. The report deemed the estimate \u2018credible\u2019 but noted that the Hamas-controlled ministry does not distinguish between Hamas fighters and civilians in casualty counts.<\/p>\n
The State Department said it is \u2018reasonable to assess\u2019 that U.S. defense articles \u2018have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its [international humanitarian law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm.\u2019 However, the report came short of accusing Israel of specific humanitarian law violations and noted that Hamas hides military targets behind civilian populations and infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s continued military operation in Gaza has created a political problem for Biden as left-wing anti-Israel agitators in the U.S. have grown increasingly upset at his support for Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Biden signed off on a pause of a shipment of bombs to Israel that could be used in a potential assault on Rafah last week \u2014 but the White House National Security Council kept the decision quiet until after the president delivered a long-planned speech on Tuesday to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Associated Press reported.<\/p>\n
The shipment was supposed to consist of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs, a senior U.S. administration official told the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Biden said he would halt some shipments of U.S. weapons to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a major invasion of the city of Rafah, the last major Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip. It was the first time Biden said he was prepared to condition American weaponry on Israel\u2019s action in the seven-month-long war launched in response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centers,\u2019 Biden told CNN\u2019s Erin Burnett. \u2018I made it clear that if they go into Rafah \u2013 they haven\u2019t gone in Rafah yet \u2014 if they go into Rafah, I\u2019m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities \u2014 that deal with that problem.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
His decision has prompted backlash from a growing chorus of pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers \u2014 now including Cardin \u2014 some of whom have suggested Biden\u2019s decision was motivated by politics and the upcoming election in November.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I suspect it\u2019s pandering to the far left,\u2019 Rep. Ritchie Tores, D-N.Y., told Axios. \u2018It looks like election year politics was driving it. That\u2019s my impression.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Democratic Party is divided on Israel amid a massive wave of student protests at U.S. college and university campuses. Anti-Israel agitators have set up illegal encampments on at least 50 campuses and more than 2,800 have been arrested by police called to disperse the unlawful gatherings, according to the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., an outspoken advocate for Israel\u2019s right to defend itself from Hamas, told Axios that he opposed Biden\u2019s pause on weapons shipments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I strenuously disagree,\u2019 Fetterman said. \u2018We have to stand with our key ally throughout all of this.\u2019<\/p>\n
Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., said security assistance to Israel should be \u2018unconditional\u2019 while Israel faces threats from Iran and its proxy groups, like Hamas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The administration should not do anything that undermines Israel\u2019s ability to defeat Hamas and address mounting threats across the region,\u2019 she told Jewish Insider.<\/p>\n
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., agreed that U.S. support for Israel should continue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t know what the president meant. I haven\u2019t seen what the actual operation in Rafah is, but I certainly hope that we\u2019ll continue to provide support militarily and diplomatically that Israel needs to defend itself,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The White House pushed back on the suggestion that Biden\u2019s decision on Israel was motivated by politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The American people expect their presidents to have the guts to make hard national security decisions, and to put our safety, interests, principles, and alliances above politics,\u2019 White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. \u2018That\u2019s exactly what Joe Biden is doing. \u00a0He is standing with Israel as they fight the Hamas terrorists who committed the hideous\u00a0October 7th\u00a0attacks, and is making clear that how Israel defends itself matters because we do not want to see any more civilians killed.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Joe Biden is the only president in our history to have ordered the American military to actively defend Israel from a foreign attack, and the only president to have literally stood with Israel \u2014 on Israeli soil \u2014 during wartime,\u2019 Bates added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fox News Digital\u2019s Jeffrey Clark and Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.<\/p>\n\n
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said Friday that military aid to Israel should continue in a departure from the White House position. In a statement, Cardin said he disagreed with President Biden, who has threatened to withhold offensive aid from Israel if it proceeds with a ground invasion of the southern <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19011","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}