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Why don’t we tell Israel that it will take several months for all the weapons and ammunition we are sending them to arrive.? Clyde From: Salon <salon-bounces@listserve.com>
On Behalf Of egarris2--- via Salon
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday
told US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in televised remarks that Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza will continue for “more than several months.” Sullivan traveled to Israel to discuss the “timetable” of the war, and there are signs that the Biden administration wants Israel to wrap things up more quickly, but
the Israelis have shown no interest in taking the US advice. “Hamas is a terrorist organization that built itself over a decade to fight Israel, and they built infrastructure under the ground and above the ground, and it is not
easy to destroy them,” Gallant told Sullivan before a closed-door meeting. “It will take and require a long period of time — it will last more than several months, but we will win and we will destroy them. So thank you once again for coming
to Israel, for helping us, and for supporting us,” Gallant added. US officials have said the US wants Israel to conclude the current phase of the war, which involves relentless airstrikes and a ground campaign, within a few weeks,
then shift to more targeted strikes against Hamas. According to Axios, Sullivan told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu that Israel should “transition to the next lower intensity phase in a matter of weeks, not months.” But there’s no sign the US is using any of the leverage it has over Israel to achieve that end as US officials continue to promise unconditional military support. White
House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Sullivan “asked hard questions about what the next phase is going to look like” but did not dictate “terms to the Israelis about how long it has to take.” Kirby added that the war has “to take as long
as they feel they need to take.” In just over two months, the US-backed Israeli massacre has killed over 18,000 Palestinians, including over 7,000 children, displaced nearly 90% of Gaza’s population,
and shattered the enclave’s healthcare system. President Biden labeled the Israeli campaign as “indiscriminate” this week
but vowed to keep supporting it. |