Story by Mike Brest, Washington Examiner
Calls on Antony Blinken to Resign
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign over allegations that he overrode the findings of experts from within the department to keep U.S. arms shipments to Israel continuing.
Israel deliberately blocking the delivery of food and medicine
The U.S. Agency for International Development and the department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration delivered their assessment that Israel had been deliberately blocking the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza in April, ProPublica reported earlier this week. The assessment, if it came to light and Blinken agreed with it, would require the United States to stop weapons shipments to Israel because U.S. law requires it to cut off military aid to countries that block the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid.
Anthony Blinken Informs Congress
Days later, the secretary told Congress, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
Blinken “lied,” Tlaib wrote on X on Thursday morning. “People went hungry, and some died. He needs to resign now.”
Palestinians have been in desperate need of significant amounts of humanitarian aid. Experts have expressed concerns about famine and the spread of disease.
Tlaib, the only member of Congress of Palestinian descent, has been an outspoken critic of the administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war, which broke out nearly a year ago. She and others who agree with her viewpoint have repeatedly called on the administration to enact an arms embargo on Israel, though neither President Joe Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has shared support for such a strategy.
Biden, Harris, and Blinken called on Israel at various points in the war to do more to protect civilians and to allow the passage of aid to them safely.
Blinken, for his part, said the situation is “actually pretty typical” during a Wednesday interview with CBS Mornings.
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Humanitarian situation in Gaza
“We had a report to put out on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and what Israel was doing to try to make sure that people got the assistance they needed, and I had different assessments from different parts of the State Department, from other agencies that were involved, like USAID,” he said. “My job was to sort through them, which I did, draw some conclusions from that, and we put out our report. And we found that Israel needed to do a better job on the humanitarian assistance. We’ve seen improvements since then. It’s still not sufficient.”
U.S. provided billions of dollars of military aid to Israel
The U.S. has provided billions of dollars of military aid to Israel since the war began. In only one instance, it held up one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs that the administration was concerned could be used in Rafah, which several international leaders said had a risk of causing significant civilian casualties.
