Re: [Salon] U.S. Doubles Down on Defunding UNRWA — Despite Flimsy Allegations



This was shared earlier today: 
Quote: "The bill also contains a long-standing provision that would limit aid to the Palestinian Authority, which governs the occupied West Bank, if “the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court (ICC) judicially authorized investigation, or actively supports such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.”

"After a late-night vote, the Senate sent the bill to President Joe Biden to sign it into law on Saturday. 

"The U.S. first suspended aid to UNRWA in late January, when the Israeli government leveled allegations that 12 of the agency’s 30,000 employees — or 0.04 percent — were involved in Hamas’s attacks on October 7 (Israel later accused two additional employees of involvement, bringing the total number to 14).”

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Like Diogenes’ "search for an honest man,” I search for a Republican who isn’t part of the "Joint Israeli-American Fascist Coalition,” of Conservatives joined together under the umbrella of the Tikvah Fund/Kohelet Forum, and its subsidiaries; Yoram Hazony’s National Conservatives/the Federalist Society/Heritage Foundation, etc. So can anyone point out to me a Republican who is outside this coalition? Don’t even try with Rand Paul (see below), or any “libertarian” leaning Republican, though Thomas Massie serves as the exception that proves the rule. Though with Massie doing so much to enrich the Oligarchs who promote and profit from our Perpetual War, that he is a distinction without a difference, in actuality. As seen in how, despite the best efforts of some members of the Committee for the Republic, Massie wouldn’t introduce a bill to terminate the AUMF we remain under (if I have that right?).  

But contrary to this sloppy reporting; "The U.S. first suspended aid to UNRWA in late January,” Trump ended aid to UNRWA while he was in office. Biden restored it. 

BLUF: "As if to boast, in a call to mark the Jewish New Year, President Trump told American Jewish leaders: “I stopped massive amounts of money that we were paying to the Palestinians.” Trump added he told the Palestinians, “We’re not paying until you make a deal.” 
. . . 
"Trump was referring to the State Department’s recent abrupt announcement that his administration would no longer fund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), reversing a policy of support by every American president—Republican and Democrat—since it was created about 70 years ago as a cornerstone of America’s support for stability in the Middle East and flagship of our values to provide for the most vulnerable."

So where is Rand Paul, who is one of the politicians I have the most scorn and contempt for with his hypocritical duplicity, on this issue? 

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2024/01/18/congress/rand-paul-palestinian-aid-push-falls-senate-00136352

Paul: “You would think with the massacre and everything else why would we be giving any money to the Palestinians … shouldn't they have to do something to earn the money?”

"He added: “The time has come for the United States to mean what it says in the defense of human rights.”

So, regardless of how Paul voted on the Defense Bill, he did his best to eliminate UNRWA funding earlier!

Here’s more of the Republican/Likud Coalition furthering Israeli Genocide!

https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/house-democrats-call-for-restored-funding-for-unrwa/
BLUF: "Republican Senators Introduce Bill to Block US Aid for Palestinians. On Tuesday, Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Bill Hagerty (R-TN) introduced S.3814, which would prevent the US government from providing to the Palestinian territories any aid that would normally be prohibited by global terrorism sanctions. Sen. Cruz stated that “the Biden administration exempted and continues to exempt itself from American laws prohibiting material support for terrorism,” citing the administration’s past funding for UNRWA. The bill would prevent the administration from funding UNRWA in the future.

"House Republicans Lead Resolution Condemning ICJ Provisional Ruling. On Thursday, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) introduced H.Res.1041 condemning the International Court of Justice’s issuance of provisional measures against Israel in the case brought by South Africa. The resolution expresses unequivocal US support for Israel and calls on the Biden administration to “formally intervene in this case in support of Israel, to encourage other nations to intervene in this case in support of Israel, and to assess if and how South Africa has been complicit in supporting Hamas and how such complicity may be legally sanctioned.”

. . . 

"Rep. Tenney Announces “Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act.” On Thursday, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) announced the “Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act,” which would require all official United States documents and materials to use the term “Judea and Samaria” instead of the “West Bank.”

None of which is to defend Democratic Party Goldwater Conservatives, meaning National Security Hawks, like Biden, and his administration, as were Clinton and Albright, to name just a few. But it is to refute what has been an unrelenting PsyOps meme here, by Trumpites and DeSantisites, dba the New Right, and their Oliogarchal backers, Charles Koch and Peter Thiel, in particular, and any group either has been part of, to “reinvent Conservatives,” of the ‘Traditional,” and “National” sort, as “Right-wing Peaceniks.” When they’ve never been any such thing. As anyone with a brain here knows full well, if they’ve been even just minimally alert! 

But here’s a bit on the Koch Network, and the Paul’s:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/ron-paul-headlines-one-koch-brothers-eventas-rand-paul-skips-another
Quote: "But for young libertarians, the movement has a face, and that face is Ron Paul’s. “He’s the bait,”  Justin Raimondo, the founder of Antiwar.com, told me. Raimondo is part of what he describes as the hard-core wing of the libertarian movement, and the Kochs, to people like him, are sellouts. (TP- and entry-level drug,” to the Right, as Ron Paul’s collaboration with ultra-militarist Michelle Bachmann was evidence of, and a precursor to Trumpist ultra-militarism). 

"So the libertarian movement split off into separate factions, the Koch-founded Cato Institute and the Murray Rothbard-founded Ludwig von Mises Institute, which served the more hardcore libertarians. Ron Paul, as Weigel wrote, was closer to Rothbard. When he ran for president, in 2007, “the worry” among more mainstream libertarians, according to Weigel, “was that Paul’s brand of populist, Federal Reserve-bashing libertarianism was not the best way to sell the philosophy…This proved spectacularly wrong.”

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It may have been “wrong,” as far as "selling” the ideology, but it was ludicrous, and duplicitous. The former because even if “End the Fed” ever happened, it would be replaced by something similar, and as we know, that would be something giving even more power to to our Oligarchs, like Koch, who funded so much of Paul and his “network.”Duplicitous 


I saw how “antiwar” the Cato Institute was when their most vigorous and effective opponent of US militarism/wars, Charles Pena, was fired, back around 2009-2010. When Pena regularly met with a couple of The American Conservative writers (before they went West Coast Straussian, in about 2015), an assistant to Ron Paul, and me, at the Liberty Tavern on Wilson Blvd, for many stimulating discussions over lunch. Out of which came a plan to create the “Institute for the Study of American Militarism,” which we later incorporated, and later yet, dissolved. But I well remember the day when Pena told us he had been let go from Cato, and why. 



On Mar 25, 2024, at 5:30 AM, Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:

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