Tag: joe biden

Most Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza: Poll | Israel War on Gaza News

A majority of Americans disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza, a new poll has shown, as the Israeli military continues to pound the besieged Palestinian enclave and imposes a siege that has created a hunger crisis.

The Gallup poll released on Wednesday found that 55 percent of respondents disapproved of the Israeli military’s actions in the Gaza Strip, up from 45 percent who said they disapproved in November, a month after Israel began its operation.

Among Democratic Party voters, the percentage was even higher, with 75 percent of respondents expressing a negative view of Israel’s actions, while 60 percent of independents also said they disapproved.

“The Gallup poll reflects a clear disconnect between the Biden administration’s policies and the views of a majority of Americans, particularly Democrats, on Israel’s actions in Gaza,” said Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, a think-tank in Washington, DC.

“This divergence suggests a pressing need for the administration to realign its foreign policy with the values and expectations of its constituents,” Jarrar told Al Jazeera in an email.

“Such a substantial gap in approval should be another reason for the administration to end its ongoing support to Israel’s genocide.”

The findings of the poll, which was conducted earlier this month, come as Israel has intensified its bombardment of parts of the Gaza Strip despite growing international demands for a lasting ceasefire to end the war.

US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has also faced protests and public anger over his staunch support for Israel and refusal to withhold foreign aid to the Israeli government until it complies with international human rights norms.

Earlier this week, the Biden administration abstained from a United Nations Security Council ceasefire resolution instead of using its veto, a move that experts said highlighted Biden’s frustrations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But Washington continues to provide weapons and public support to Israel, and senior US officials have downplayed the importance of the UN Security Council measure.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Wednesday that Israeli attacks on the territory over the past 24 hours had killed at least 76 Palestinians, raising the total to at least 32,490 Palestinians killed since Israel began its assault following Hamas’s October 7 attack that left 1,139 Israelis dead.

Israel also continues to block humanitarian aid deliveries to the enclave, which is facing shortages of food, clean water and other supplies.

A UN expert warned this week that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The Israeli government rejected those allegations.

Against that backdrop, Biden’s approval rating for his handling of the situation in the Middle East sits at 27 percent, according to another Gallup poll released last week.

Among Democrats, the approval rating was 47 percent, compared with 16 percent and 21 percent among Republicans and independents, respectively.

“Democrats’ widespread opposition to Israel’s actions underscores the difficulty of the issue for President Joe Biden among his most loyal supporters,” Gallup said on Wednesday.

“Some Democratic critics believe Biden has been too closely aligned with Israel by not taking stronger actions to promote a ceasefire and to assist Palestinian civilians caught in the war zone.”

Biden has faced a growing protest movement over his Gaza policy as he campaigns for re-election in November against his predecessor and the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

Groups have urged Democratic voters to cast “uncommitted” ballots during several state primaries so far this year, including in the key US swing state of Michigan.

Earlier this month, organisers of the so-called Listen to Michigan campaign announced plans to take their movement national.

“Today, we launched our national movement to let you all know uncommitted voters aren’t going anywhere, and we aren’t backing down until we achieve a permanent ceasefire,” Layla Elabed, a key organiser, told reporters.



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Who is election disrupter Robert F Kennedy Jr? | Elections

Robert F Kennedy Jr, scion of the most famous United States political dynasty, will announce his running mate on Tuesday as he competes as an independent candidate in the 2024 US presidential election.

The odds are stacked against him as no third-party candidate has won the presidency in more than a century and a half.

But the longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist has been able to create a media buzz, thanks to his strong brand recognition: His uncle was former President John F Kennedy, and his father was Robert F Kennedy, a former US attorney general and senator.

He ditched the Democratic Party after failing to secure its presidential nomination and is playing to both far-left and far-right elements in his long-shot bid for the White House.

His campaign appears to be resonating among so-called double haters, who dread the prospect of a rematch between incumbent Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, who is the frontrunner to win the Republican Party’s nomination despite his legal woes.

Recent opinion polls indicated that while he might take voters from both candidates, it is Biden whom he could hurt the most.

The committee in the US House of Representatives that investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters shows footage of a 2020 presidential election debate between Trump, left, and Biden. The two men are set for a rematch in November [File: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]

Amid a climate of political disenchantment, Kennedy has projected himself as a political outsider and blasts “corporate kleptocracy” while touting his environmental credentials.

A longtime vaccine sceptic, he has been accused of spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine on alternative media outlets, such as conservative host Joe Rogan’s popular podcast. Rogan has also been accused of spreading falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines on The Joe Rogan Experience.

While Kennedy’s detractors have branded him a conspiracy theorist, his supporters hail him as a truth teller.

So who is this political freewheeler? Where does he come from? What does he think, and does he really stand a chance of winning?

What is Kennedy’s background?

Kennedy’s family name evokes privilege and tragedy in equal measure. He was just nine years old when President John F Kennedy was shot dead in November 1963. His father, Robert, suffered the same fate while mounting his own presidential bid five years later.

Senator Robert F Kennedy addresses a throng of supporters in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968, after winning California’s presidential primary election. A moment later, he was fatally shot [Dick Strobel/AP Photo]

Grief-stricken, RFK Jr turned to heroin to “fill an empty space inside of me”, finally getting clean after an arrest for possession. His second wife, Mary, mother of four of his six children, also battled addiction and died by suicide. He is now married to Cheryl Hines, famous for her role on the sitcom Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Kennedy suffers from a speech impediment called spasmodic dysphonia, which causes muscles in the larynx to spasm, although the condition has not seemed to have dented his performance on shows hosted by the likes of Rogan and conservative Canadian best-selling author Jordan Peterson, where his shoot-from-the-hip style plays well.

His controversial views have led his own family to disavow him. “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,” his siblings said in a statement posted on X. “We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country.”

What does he stand for?

Not one for sticking to a script, Kennedy holds a mixed bag record of often contradictory views that make him difficult to pigeonhole.

Take the environment. Once named a “Hero of the Planet” by Time magazine, the former environmental lawyer is known for his campaigns to clean up the nation’s waterways, reduce the use of toxic pesticides and promote renewables. Yet his calls for “freedom and free markets” as a solution to climate change have raised fears that he would let industry set the pace for curbing fossil fuel use.

He has also threatened to repeal Biden’s signature climate legislation, which pushes for a transition to a green economy.

His libertarian streak came to the fore during the COVID-19 pandemic when he accused the US government’s then-chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, of “a historic coup d’etat against Western democracy”. He also claimed the virus was engineered to attack Caucasians and Black people, sparing Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews.

His views on the Israel-Palestine conflict are typically contradictory. Kennedy supported Roger Waters last year amid mass outrage over a gig that saw the Pink Floyd co-founder donning Nazi attire and projecting the logo of an Israeli arms firm on a giant inflated pig. Yet, months later, the politician staunchly defended Israel’s no-limits war on Gaza, which has killed more than 32,000 people and pushed the besieged enclave to the verge of famine.

Isolationist by nature, he opposes aid to Ukraine, blaming the US and NATO for creating a “proxy war” with Russia. In a recent interview, he said the billions in funding to the war-torn country could be used for “healing farms” for people in the throes of addiction and depression as he highlighted the fentanyl crisis.

“His task will be to straddle the huge chasm between RFK Jr, the very liberal, progressive environmentalist and the anti-vaccination crusader,” said Steffen Schmidt, professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science at Iowa State University.

On immigration, RFK Jr opposes Trump’s plan to erect a wall on the US border with Mexico. He has also been critical of Biden’s handling of the border crisis. He has promised to secure the border with the use of modern technology, such as cameras and detectors, to stop entry of undocumented immigrants. He backs expanding legal immigration into the US.

Will voters buy his mixed messages?

That’s difficult to predict. According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, six in 10 respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the two-party system and wanted a third choice.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans see him as a threat. The former are especially worried, fearing that the lure of his star-power name could siphon votes from Biden.

According to several opinion polls released in February and March, 40 percent of Americans have a favourable opinion of RFK Jr. His approval ratings have come down since December when Gallup showed 52 percent of Americans liked him – more than those for Trump or Biden.

“RFK Jr appeals to those Republican right-wing folks who enjoy conspiracy theories, but he also appeals somewhat to those who are really far left,” said Melissa Smith, author of the 2022 book, Third Parties, Outsiders, and Renegades: Modern Challenges to the Two-Party System in Presidential Elections. “It’s sort of like the far right and the far left wrap around and can coalesce around a candidate like this.”

Kennedy often cites support from Gen Z, the generation born from 1997 to 2012. His policy ideas do not appear to be geared towards the youth vote. He has, for example, called for a 15-week federal ban on abortion and blames video games and rising use of antidepressants for gun violence. But his straight talk on economic inequality resonates with younger people struggling with low wages and high housing costs.

Could he really make an impact?

While Republicans and Democrats are automatically on the presidential ballot, outsider candidates need to spend millions collecting signatures from registered voters and hiring lawyers to fight off legal challenges from established parties over complex ballot access rules that vary from state to state.

“The electoral system was created by the two big parties to keep third-party candidates from winning,” Schmidt said.

So far, Kennedy has qualified for the ballot in only one state, Utah. He has filed paperwork to create his own We the People Party in California, Delaware, Hawaii, Mississippi and North Carolina and is setting up the Texas Independent Party in the Lone Star state.

His campaign team told the The New York Times that it reckoned the moves would slash the number of signatures he needs across all 50 states by 330,000.

Even if he makes it onto ballots, analysts believe his chances of success are remote. Many cited the case of Ross Perot, the wealthy Texan who polled as a frontrunner against Bill Clinton and George HW Bush in 1992. He fell short of expectations, securing only a fifth of the popular vote and failing to win a single electoral vote. A presidential candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win.

Former presidential candidate Ross Perot addresses the 1996 California convention of the Reform Party, the political party he founded [Reed Saxon/AP Photo]

Still, Kennedy could make a difference in the election. The average of opinion polls tracked by US election data site RealClearPolitics showed that while Trump leads Biden nationally by 2 percentage points in a two-candidate race, that gap widens to more than 4 points if Kennedy is also in the race.

In key battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Trump’s lead over Biden grows if Kennedy and other candidates are considered.

“Do I think he will win? Absolutely not. Do I think he might steal a few votes? Yes. But will he really impact the election? If history can be trusted, the answer is no,” Smith said.

Any other outside bets?

Kennedy is not the only third-party candidate making a well-funded credible bid for the presidency. No Labels, a centrist group that has yet to name a candidate, has qualified in 14 states so far. And Cornel West, an African American philosopher and left-wing activist, launched his own bid after breaking with the Green Party.

But ultimately, Kennedy has something the others do not. Whatever his policies, his links to the closest thing the US has ever had to a royal family could yet work in his favour.



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Will the UN ceasefire resolution stop Israel’s war on Gaza? | Israel War on Gaza News

After more than five months of fighting and five vetoed draft resolutions, United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members on Monday successfully passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

The United States abstained from voting while the remaining 14 UNSC members voted in favour of the resolution, which was proposed by the 10 elected members of the council.

The resolution calls for an “immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting, sustainable ceasefire”.

It additionally calls for the release of the Israeli captives taken by Hamas on October 7. It emphasises the need for more humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza and on adherence to international law.

While promising at least a pause in the war, the resolution has been criticised by some analysts for being more symbolic than substantial in its ability to bring an end to the war. Nancy Okail, the president of the US-based think tank Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera’s Ali Harb that while the resolution is significant, it is “still very late and still not enough”.

Is the resolution binding?

All UNSC resolutions are considered binding, in accordance with Article 25 of the UN Charter which was ratified by the US.

However, the US has described the Monday resolution as non-binding. US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington fully supported “some of the critical objectives in this non-binding resolution”. On the same day, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters: “It is a non-binding resolution”.

This has been contested by other UN officials and Security Council members. China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun said that Security Council resolutions are binding.

Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq added that UNSC resolutions are international law, “so to that extent they are as binding as international law is”.

The Anadolu Agency reported that Pedro Comissario, Mozambique’s UN ambassador, said “all United Nations Security Council resolutions are binding and mandatory”.

If a UNSC resolution is not followed, the council can vote on a follow-up resolution addressing the breach and take punitive action in the form of sanctions or even the authorisation of an international force.

Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays has previously said that “There are virtually no circumstances under which the Biden administration would support a punitive resolution” that takes action against Israel.

Israel has repeatedly gotten away with flouting UN resolutions in the past.

In December 2016, during the last days of Barack Obama’s presidential term in the US, the UNSC passed a resolution deeming Israel’s settlements in Palestine illegal and a violation of international law. The resolution passed with 14 votes and the US abstained. Israel ignored this resolution.

More recently, in December 2023, the UN General Assembly voted with an overwhelming majority to call for a “humanitarian ceasefire”. That was a non-binding resolution – and Israel refused to act on it.

Israel is also under the scanner of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where South Africa has accused it of committing acts of genocide in Gaza.   

Will the UN resolution stop the war?

The resolution calls for an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan. However, since Ramadan ends around April 9, the ceasefire demand – even if implemented now – would last for just two weeks.

The document says that the immediate ceasefire in Ramadan should then lead to a lasting and sustainable ceasefire. Shortly before the vote on Monday, the word “permanent” was dropped from the resolution to try to build consensus on the text. Russia tried to push for the use of the word “permanent,” saying that not using the word could allow Israel “to resume its military operation in the Gaza Strip at any moment” after Ramadan.

The US has also not halted the supply of military aid to Israel and has insisted that its commitment to Israel’s security remains firm. In fact, White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters on Monday: “Our vote does not – and I repeat that, does not – represent a shift in our policy”.

How is this resolution different from the recent resolution that failed?

A draft resolution was put forth by the US before the council last Friday and the members voted on it. It was vetoed by Russia and China; Algeria voted against it and Guyana abstained. Eleven members voted in favour of this draft resolution.

The resolution did not demand a ceasefire, but instead supported “international diplomatic efforts to establish an immediate and sustained ceasefire as part of a deal that releases the hostages”.

In a press statement on Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken added that the US wants any demands of a ceasefire to be tied to the release of Israeli captives.

The Friday resolution also urged UNSC member states to “suppress the financing of terrorism, including by restricting financing of Hamas”. The resolution also condemned Hamas and noted that Hamas “has been designated as a terrorist organisation by numerous member states”. Blinken’s statement further said that the resolution that passed on Monday failed to condemn Hamas, which is key language that the US views as essential.

Israel has criticised Monday’s resolution for not tying a ceasefire to the release of captives – and instead for the two to each happen separately.

Has the resolution deepened US-Israel tensions?

The US abstained on Monday after vetoing three previous draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire.

Heightened tensions between the US and Israel were seen on Monday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a trip by a delegation to Washington. This was described as “surprising and unfortunate” by State Department spokesperson Miller.

However, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant is in the US: He met Blinken on Monday and is scheduled to meet US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday. Blinken told Gallant to refrain from a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

While the US reiterated that its policy remains consistent, the official Prime Minister of Israel X handle posted on Monday night: “The United States has abandoned its policy in the UN today”.

It added to a thread of posts: “Prime Minister Netanyahu made it clear last night that should the US depart from its principled policy and not veto this harmful resolution, he will cancel the Israeli delegation’s visit to the United States.”

Gaza is on the brink of starvation, with at least 32, 000 Palestinians killed. “This resolution must be implemented,” posted UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on X.

“Failure would be unforgivable”.



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AOC decries ‘unfolding genocide’ in Gaza, urges halting weapons to Israel | Israel War on Gaza News

Washington, DC – Describing the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as a genocide, progressive Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called on the United States to suspend weapons transfers to Israel.

In an impassioned speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez condemned the Israeli blockade on Gaza, which the United Nations says has put the territory on the verge of famine.

“This is a mass starvation of people, engineered and orchestrated following the killing of another 30,000, 70 percent of whom were women and children killed. There is hardly a single hospital left. And this was all accomplished, much of this accomplished, with US resources and weapons,” Ocasio-Cortez, a US representative from New York, said.

“If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes. It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents. It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves, while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away.

“It looks like good and decent people who do nothing, or too little, too late.”

Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most recognised names in Congress and a rising star in President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, had previously faced criticism from the left for failing to join many of her fellow progressive in accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.

The Biden administration rejects allegations that Israel is systematically committing human rights violations in Gaza. Earlier this year, it called South Africa’s petition to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide unfounded.

Ocasio-Cortez said on Friday that the US cannot continue to “facilitate” mass killings in Gaza in the name of honouring its alliance with Israel.

“The time is now to force compliance with US law and the standards of humanity, and fulfill our obligations to the American people to suspend the transfer of US weapons to the Israeli government in order to stop and prevent further atrocity,” the congresswoman said.

The US is Israel’s top weapons supplier.

Washington provides at least $3.8bn in aid to Israel annually, and Biden is working with Congress to secure $14bn in additional aid to the US ally.

Public opinion polls, however, show that the Biden administration’s steadfast support for Israel may cost the president votes as the election season gets under way, and Biden and key Democrats have in recent weeks been more forceful in their criticism of the Israeli government siege of Gaza.

US officials have repeatedly warned Israel against invading Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than one million displaced Palestinians have taken shelter.

But White House national security spokesperson John Kirby suggested on Friday that Washington will not halt its weapon transfers to Israel. US officials have said that they share Israel’s goals of eliminating Hamas in Gaza.

Asked whether the US will use its “leverage” to dissuade Israel from launching a major ground operation in Rafah, Kirby said, “We’re going to continue to approach this with Israel as we have in the past, which is to make sure that they have the tools they need to defend themselves against a still-viable threat.”

Kirby added that, at the same time, the US will use its ties with Israel and the relationship between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “urge them to minimise civilian casualties” and allow more humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

Earlier on Friday, the UN Security Council failed to adopt a US-authored proposal around a ceasefire in Gaza. The measure backed the “imperative” for “an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides” but fell short of explicitly demanding an end to the war.

Kirby said the draft resolution signals no change in the Biden administration’s position, which has been to push for a temporary cessation of hostilities as part of a deal that would see the release of Israeli captives in Gaza.

“It is in line with our longstanding calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza over a period of at least six weeks as part of our hostage deal – nothing new there,” he said.

The White House spokesperson added that progress is being made in the talks to reach a truce agreement. “Nothing is negotiated until it’s all negotiated. But we do believe that the gaps are narrowing and we are getting closer,” he told reporters.

However, US progressives have long argued that a temporary halt in fighting is not sufficient, calling on Washington to revise its unconditional support for Israel.

“This is not just about Israel or Gaza. This is about us. The world will never be the same,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Friday of the mounting death toll and hunger in the Palestinian territory.

“Our story must be not that we were good men who did nothing, but that we were a committed democracy that did something.”



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‘Moral failure’: US House approves bill that would ban UNRWA funding | UNRWA News

Washington, DC – The United States House of Representatives has approved a $1.2 trillion funding bill that would ban funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) amid the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

The measure, which passed in a 286 to 134 vote on Friday, would keep the government fully functioning in advance of a partial shutdown deadline.

The proposed legislation now goes to the Senate, which must pass it by midnight on Friday, when several government agencies would start running out of money. President Joe Biden has promised to sign the bill into law immediately, if the Democratic-controlled upper chamber of Congress passes the legislation as expected.

The measure faced opposition from dozens of far-right Republicans, who argued that it does not curb government spending enough. After the vote, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a motion to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson from his post for his endorsement of the bipartisan spending deal; 22 Democrats, many of whom had expressed concerns about the UNRWA provision, joined Republicans in opposing the plan.

Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), called the passage of the bill “an incredible moral failure”.

“Our political process has chosen to cut US funding to literally the only entity that can address the level of suffering and scale of suffering that’s happening in Gaza right now,” Berry told Al Jazeera.

Looming Gaza famine

The bill comes as the United Nations has been warning of the growing risk of famine in Gaza amid the Israeli blockade. Gaza officials have said that many children have already died of dehydration and starvation over the past month.

Several progressives had slammed the ban on US aid to UNRWA, which provides vital services on the ground to Palestinians in Gaza and across the Middle East.

In a speech on the House floor on Thursday, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib accused Israel of committing “some of the most horrific crimes against humanity” in this century.

“The Israeli government has been intentionally starving the Palestinian people,” she said.

Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, added that UNRWA is the “major organisation that provides desperately needed food and humanitarian assistance to starving Palestinians”.

“Members here – all of them – are now going to be contributing to the starvation of Palestinian families,” she said.

Senator Chris Van Hollen also decried the looming ban, expressing disappointment and frustration at the measure.

“UNRWA is the primary means of distributing desperately-needed assistance in Gaza – so denying funding for UNRWA is tantamount to denying food to starving people and restricting medical supplies to injured civilians,” Van Hollen said in a statement.

“It also means cutting support for services – including schooling and healthcare – for over a million Palestinians in the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.”

Van Hollen did not say whether he would vote against the bill. Last month, the senator voted in favour of proposed legislation that would provide $14bn in additional aid to Israel and defund UNRWA, despite his criticism of the war on Gaza and advocacy for the UN agency.

Israel had accused UNRWA of ties to Hamas – allegations rejected by the agency and major humanitarian groups.

Earlier this year, the Israeli government said around a dozen UNRWA employees took part in Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel. UNRWA opened a probe into the allegations. The UN also appointed an independent panel to review the agency.

The Israeli accusations prompted more than a dozen Western countries, led by the US, to pause aid to UNRWA.

But in a report seen by many media outlets last month, UNRWA said Israeli forces tortured several of its staff members in Gaza to get them to admit to links to Hamas.

Many of the countries that had paused their assistance to UNRWA, including Canada and Australia, resumed the funding in the past weeks. But the Biden administration has continued to withhold the funds.

Palestinian refugees

On Thursday, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez described the de-funding of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees as “unconscionable”.

“It’s also not grounded in sound facts,” she said. “We have intelligence assessments that speak to this and I find it highly political.”

The US funding bill includes other pro-Israel measures, including strict restrictions on US humanitarian aid to Palestinians.

Berry, of AAI, said it was important to put the looming ban in the context of the broader, years-long Israeli efforts to deligitimise UNRWA.

The UN agency provides healthcare and education amongst other essential services across the region to millions Palestinian refugees – people who were forcibly displaced from their homes during the establishment of the state of Israel and their descendants.

Berry said while the defunding UNRWA during a starvation crisis in Gaza is “shocking”, the issue is even bigger than the aid to the Palestinian territory; it is part of the push to “erase Palestinian refugees”.

The White House, which is typically involved in setting the parameters of funding bills, has endorsed the proposed legislation, suggesting that Biden is on board with de-funding UNRWA.

“Biden administration policy since October 7 has been tragically flawed,” Berry told Al Jazeera. “And instead of course-correcting, instead of digging out the hole that they have placed the US in, and that has harmed the US world standing, they have not been able to actually pivot.”

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‘Horrific’: US Supreme court allows Texas to detain, deport migrants | Migration News

The United States Supreme Court has lifted a pause on a controversial law that allows Texas state authorities to detain and deport migrants and asylum seekers, a measure critics have dubbed the “show me your papers” law.

The top court on Tuesday voted six to three to allow the law, Texas Senate Bill 4 (SB4), to go immediately into effect.

Legal scholars, however, have argued that the law subverts the federal government’s constitutional authority to carry out immigration enforcement.

Rights groups have also warned it threatens to increase racial profiling and imperil the rights of asylum seekers. The American Civil Liberties Union, for instance, called SB4 “one of the most extreme anti-immigrant laws ever passed by any state legislature” in the US.

Tuesday’s Supreme Court action does not weigh the merits of the law, which continues to be challenged in lower courts. It instead vacates a lower court ruling that paused the law from going into effect.

The administration of President Joe Biden has challenged SB4 on the grounds that the law is unconstitutional.

Migrant advocates, as well as civil rights groups, have also pledged to continue the legal fight to render SB4 void.

Their challenge could eventually again reach the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which determines matters of constitutionality.

“While we are outraged over this decision, we will continue to work with our partners to have SB4 struck down,” Jennefer Canales-Pelaez, a policy lawyer and strategist at the Immigration Legal Resource Center, said in a statement.

“The horrific and clearly unconstitutional impacts of this law on communities in Texas is terrifying.”

Tami Goodlette, the director of the Beyond Borders Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the Supreme Court’s decision on Tuesday “needlessly puts people’s lives at risk”.

“Everyone, no matter if you have called Texas home for decades or just got here yesterday, deserves to feel safe and have the basic right of due process,” Goodlette said in a statement.

‘Lead us to victory in court’

Texas Governor Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton, both Republicans, have argued the SB4 runs parallel to, but does not conflict with, federal US law.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Abbott called the Supreme Court decision “clearly a positive development”.

Paxton, whose office is defending the law in court, said it was a “huge win”.

“As always, it’s my honor to defend Texas and its sovereignty, and to lead us to victory in court,” he wrote.

The pair have become national conservative figureheads in their criticism of the Biden administration’s border policy, an issue set to dominate the 2024 presidential elections.

Texas, a southwestern state, shares a 3,145km (1,254-mile) border with Mexico. Texas leaders have said the new law is needed to control the record numbers of irregular crossings along the border in recent years.

Signed into law in December, SB4 is an extension of Abbott’s “Operation Lone Star“, a border security programme that launched in March 2021 and has since grown into a $12bn initiative.

Under the programme, the governor has planted razor wire along the border, built a floating fence in the Rio Grande, surged the number of Texas National Guard members in the area and increased the amount of funds available to local law enforcement to target migrants and asylum seekers.

‘Chaos and abuse’

It was not clear on Tuesday if local authorities would immediately begin enforcing SB4, which makes it a state crime to cross the Texas-Mexico border outside of regular ports of entry.

Those arrested face up to six months in jail for an initial offence, with repeat offenders facing up to 20 years.

Judges are permitted to drop the charges if a person agrees to be deported to Mexico, regardless of their country of origin or if they have an asylum claim in the US.

Mexico’s government had previously decried the law as “inhumane”.

Following Tuesday’s decision, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre called the law “another example of Republican officials politicising the border while blocking real solutions”.

For its part, the nonprofit Human Rights Watch on Tuesday said the law violates US asylum obligations and federal law.

“National governments are entitled to regulate their borders so long as they comply with international human rights and refugee law,” Bob Libal, a Texas consultant at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“But allowing Texas to run with its draconian system of criminalisation and returns of asylum seekers is a recipe for chaos and abuse.”

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Biden warns Netanyahu against ‘mistake’ of invading Rafah: White House | Israel War on Gaza News

Washington, DC – The United States has issued its strongest public warning yet to Israel against invading the crowded city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, saying that such a ground operation would deepen the humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters on Monday that, while President Joe Biden remains committed to the goal of defeating Hamas, he communicated to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a major assault on Rafah would be a “mistake”.

“It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza and further isolate Israel Internationally,” Sullivan said.

The Israeli military has killed more than 31,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the start of the war on October 7, following a deadly attack on southern Israel that killed at least 1,100 people.

According to Sullivan, Biden asked Netanyahu in a phone call to send a team of intelligence and military officials to Washington, DC, to hear concerns about any potential invasion of Rafah.

Throughout the war, Israel has ordered Palestinian civilians in Gaza to move south as it invaded the territory from the north.

Many residents were first displaced to the middle part of the enclave and then moved to the southern city of Khan Younis. They were ultimately forced to flee again to Rafah, situated on the Egyptian border.

Over the past five months, Rafah’s population has ballooned to more than 1.5 million people, up from about 300,000 before the war.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly expressed their intention to invade Rafah, which serves as a key hub for humanitarian aid coming through the Egyptian border.

But United Nations experts have warned of looming famine in the territory. And Western countries, including Israel’s allies in Europe, have cautioned the country against assaulting Rafah.

On Monday, the US unambiguously joined those calls, with Sullivan saying that Palestinians in Rafah have nowhere else to go.

“Gaza’s other major cities have largely been destroyed, and Israel has not presented us or the world with a plan for how or where they would safely move those civilians — let alone feed and house them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said Biden reiterated to Netanyahu his “bone-deep commitment” to Israel’s security. But he went on to criticise Israel’s war effort.

“A military plan cannot succeed without an integrated humanitarian plan and political plan,” Sullivan told reporters.

“And the president has repeatedly made the point that continuing military operations need to be connected to a clear strategic endgame. The president told the prime minister again today that we share the goal of defeating Hamas, but we just believe you need a coherent and sustainable strategy to make that happen.”

Netanyahu and Biden have regularly spoken on the phone since October 7, but the two leaders are reported to have a fraught relationship, despite the US president’s unconditional backing of Israel.

Last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — a staunch Israel supporter and the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in Biden’s Democratic Party — described Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace and called for new elections in Israel “once the war starts to wind down”.

The Israeli prime minister later slammed the top US legislator’s comments as “totally inappropriate” in an interview with CNN.

But Biden described Schumer’s remarks as a “good speech” that expressed concerns shared by many Americans.

Still, in an interview with MSNBC last week, Biden suggested he is not ready to use US aid and weapon transfers as leverage to pressure Israel to end its abuses against Palestinians.

“The defence of Israel is still critical, so there’s no red line [where] I’m going to cut off all weapons so they don’t have the Iron Dome to protect them,” Biden said, referring to Israel’s US-funded missile defence system.

“But there’s red lines that, if he crosses them, [we] cannot have 30,000 more Palestinians dead.”

Palestinian rights advocates have stressed for months that criticism alone will not get Netanyahu to end the war, calling on Washington to place conditions on aid to Israel.

But the Biden administration on Monday renewed its backing for a foreign funding bill being considered in Congress that would provide more than $14bn in additional assistance to Israel.

“Broadly, we support the contours of this supplemental bill. We believe that it is vital for what is required to support our Ukrainian partners, to support our Israeli partners,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters.

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How the uncommitted vote against Biden’s Gaza policy is going ‘national’ | Joe Biden News

Washington, DC – The organisers of Listen to Michigan — an effort to protest Joe Biden’s policy towards Israel’s war in Gaza — have a message for the United States president: The conflict is not a “niche” issue for only some segments of the political left.

Listen to Michigan emerged earlier this year as a grassroots movement focused on the state’s primary. It called on voters to cast “uncommitted votes” instead of backing Biden’s reelection effort, in an attempt to signal displeasure over the president’s stance on the war.

But that movement has kicked off a domino effect in other key states, with similar “protest votes” emerging. On Monday, Listen to Michigan unveiled plans to take its campaign to the national stage.

“Since we launched our campaign in Michigan, critics have gone out of their way to minimise the momentum of ‘uncommitted’ and Listen to Michigan and what this movement has gained as a niche issue of the left,” Layla Elabed, a key Michigan organiser, said during a news conference on Monday.

“Today, we launched our national movement to let you all know uncommitted voters aren’t going anywhere, and we aren’t backing down until we achieve a permanent ceasefire.”

Organisers said the announcement serves to dispel perceptions that Listen to Michigan was a one-off phenomenon, only applicable to the state where it was founded.

They hope to mobilise voters in other state primaries, to send a strong message before the general election that the war is unacceptable.

A movement born in Michigan

Michigan, itself a key battleground state, is home to large Arab and Muslim populations that have become increasingly politically engaged in recent years.

But the war in Gaza has been a particularly galvanising issue. The death toll in the Palestinian enclave has spiralled to more than 31,700, as Israel continues its months-long bombardment and siege.

United Nations experts have warned that parts of Gaza are on the brink of famine. Still, the Biden administration and other top Washington officials have pledged steadfast support to Israel, despite the human rights concerns its military actions have prompted.

The Listen to Michigan campaign aimed to muster 10,000 “uncommitted” votes in protest of Biden’s support for Israel. Instead, on February 27, Michigan saw 101,000 ballots cast for “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary — smashing the organisers’ goals. “Uncommitted” accounted for 13 percent of the total vote.

But as primary elections continued in other states, some organisers were sceptical that Michigan’s success could be replicated elsewhere. Would the protest spread beyond Arab and Muslim communities?

The Minnesota primary on March 5 offered an answer. There, a whopping 19 percent of Democratic primary voters — approximately 46,000 people — chose “uncommitted” in the state’s primary.

Activists in the state said the “uncommitted” turnout was all the more impressive because of how little time they had to organise: It was an eight-day, mad-dash effort.

Other states — notably Hawaii, Washington, North Carolina and Massachusetts — have also shown promising turnouts. Write-in and ballot-spoiling efforts have even sprouted in states that do not have an “uncommitted” option.

Michigan organiser Lexi Zeidan estimated that more than half a million “uncommitted” votes have been cast nationwide so far, though it is not possible to determine how many were in protest of Biden’s Gaza policy.

“Michigan led with courage that has inspired the uncommitted movement coast to coast with over 500,000 uncommitted voters,” Zeidan said at Monday’s news conference.

She warned that opposition to the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, will not be enough to rally Democrats to Biden’s side.

“As we launch the Uncommitted National Movement, we send yet another resounding message that this pressure will continue to be sustained, that you cannot weaponise fear of Trump against the very real actions of Biden.”

Eyes on Wisconsin, DNC

The Uncommitted National Movement will remain focused on the primary season, which runs until the Democratic National Convention in August.

It has also sought to distinguish itself from the Abandon Biden campaign, another grassroots effort to reject the incumbent president’s support for Israel.

Unlike the Abandon Biden campaign — which has pledged to boycott the president in the general election as well — organisers for the Uncommitted National Movement said they have not ruled out eventually supporting Biden.

“Once [Biden] has called for a permanent ceasefire, then we can talk about November,” said Abbas Alawieh, a Michigan organiser and former Congressional staffer.

“Until then, the level of pain that our community is experiencing is so excruciating that it is inappropriate to come and ask us for our votes in November while the blood is still being shed,” he said. “Stop funding the killing, then we can talk about November.”

In the meantime, the Uncommitted National Movement is focusing on the April 2 primary in Wisconsin, another Midwestern state that will be key to Biden’s reelection campaign.

Biden beat Trump in Wisconsin by just 20,682 votes in 2020, one of the slightest margins of any state. Organisers believe a strong “uncommitted” showing could be another resounding example of Biden’s vulnerability in Midwestern swing states.

“As a Palestinian American, a longtime organiser in Milwaukee, and as the former digital organising director of Biden’s 2020 Wisconsin campaign, I led the way for Biden’s victory when he won here by only 20,000 votes,” Heba Mohammad, a spokesperson for Listen to Wisconsin, told reporters.

“As people of conscience and pro-democracy, pro-peace, pro-justice voters, we are going to use this primary to call for an end to the genocide right now.”

A ‘real’ electoral problem

The national “uncommitted” campaign is also seeking to leverage its influence at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

So far, uncommitted votes will be represented at the convention by a total of 20 delegates: 11 delegates from Minnesota, seven from Hawaii and two from Michigan.

Those delegates were won in the state primary votes. Ultimately, the candidate with the most delegates from the state primaries receives their party’s nomination at the convention.

There are about 3,900 delegates available, and Biden has already broken the threshold of 1,968 needed to be named the party’s presidential nominee.

Nevertheless, Alawieh said the movement is working with state-level leadership for the Democratic Party to ensure that the “uncommitted” delegates can represent their message at the convention.

“Our intention is to coalesce and be in a coalition and community come August so that we speak with one loud, antiwar voice,” he said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, DC, said that any delegates representing the movement will be largely symbolic, as they will likely be constrained by the convention’s tight rules.

That means it will be difficult for them to introduce any positions or to take the stage at the Democratic convention without first gaining wider support from other delegates. Large swathes of the party remain staunchly pro-Israel, although there has been some softening in recent months.

Still, Zogby said the “uncommitted” movement has exposed real vulnerability in Biden’s campaign.

“Uncommitted” votes in Michigan and Minnesota surpassed the margin of victory in those states in recent presidential races. Polls currently show a close race between Biden and Trump, with just a handful of states likely to make the difference.

The situation is indicative of a larger problem for the Democratic Party, Zogby added, saying it had pivoted away from “bread-and-butter, household and community-based issues”.

“We are losing — as we see in the polls — a percentage of Black, Latino, Asian and young voters because of Gaza,” he said, “and because they have other issues that we’re not addressing”.

“If you lose two-thirds of the Arab vote, that’s one thing. That’ll only kill you in Michigan,” Zogby added. “But you lose 5, 10 percent of these minority voters or young voters nationally, then you’re dead in the water.”

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Advocates fear special US visas for Afghans could run out despite dangers | Taliban News

Washington, DC – As the United States withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in 2021, millions of Afghans faced the prospect of life once more under Taliban rule.

For thousands among them, the danger was particularly acute: They had worked with the departing Americans and could be subject to Taliban reprisals as a result.

But a long-running US programme offered the possibility of life abroad: Translators, contractors and other Afghan employees with direct ties to the US military were eligible for a Special Immigrant Visa, or SIV.

Now, less than three years later, advocates fear this narrow immigration pathway — a cornerstone of Washington’s relief efforts — could quietly fall victim to deadlock in the US Congress.

The legislature must pass a set of budget appropriations bills before March 22 in order to avert a government shutdown. But critics fear the package will pass without authorisation for more Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans, leaving them with even fewer options to escape the threats they may face.

On Thursday, a bipartisan group of legislators sent a letter (PDF) to top Senate leaders urging them to include the provision for Special Immigrant Visas in the final version of the appropriations bills.

Senator Jeanne Shaheen, one of the letter’s signatories, told Al Jazeera in a statement that Afghans connected to the US military remain “at grave risk, as the Taliban continue to hunt for them”.

“For two decades, the US military mission in Afghanistan relied on trusted Afghan allies who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with American troops,” said Shaheen. “We promised to protect them — just as they did for us.”

US Senator Jeanne Shaheen has pushed for 20,000 additional Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans to be authorised this year [Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Reuters]

Protecting Afghan allies

Shaheen is one of 13 senators pushing for 20,000 more Special Immigrant Visas to be included for Afghans in the 2024 State and Foreign Operations (SFOPS) appropriations bill, part of the budget package that needs to pass this month.

But immigration is a hot-button issue in the US election year, and advocates worry anti-immigrant sentiment could scuttle attempts to increase access.

Revised drafts of the Afghan Allies Protection Act — which sets the parameters for the Special Immigrant Visas — were introduced in both the House and Senate last year. But while the Senate Appropriations Committee authorised the 20,000 additional visas, the Republican-controlled House has not approved more on its end.

Because the visa programme for Afghans — first established in 2009 — was considered temporary, Congress has to regularly extend its mandate and adjust the number of visas available.

Currently, there are just 7,000 special visas left for principal applicants, but advocates say there are more than 140,000 pending applicants, with at least 20,000 nearing the final stages of the process.

The current processing rate is about 1,000 applicants a month, which means the visas are set to run out around August — the month that marks the third anniversary of the US troop withdrawal. Without further legislation, it is unclear what would happen next.

“I’m just mystified by this whole thing,” Kim Staffieri, the executive director of the Association of Wartime Allies (AWA), told Al Jazeera. Her organisation helps Afghans associated with the US military with their visa applications.

“I’ve been doing this for seven, eight years, and have never come to the point of worrying about running out of [SIVs] ever,” she said.

Few options for Afghans

The possibility that the programme could run out of visas has left Afghans like Abdulrahman Safi feeling betrayed.

Safi, 35, worked with both the US military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Afghanistan, before fleeing on an evacuation flight to the US in 2021.

“We come here with all these promises: ‘We won’t leave you behind,’” Safi told Al Jazeera. “Now it feels like none of that matters.”

Safi is one of the tens of thousands of Afghans who have applied for Special Immigrant Visas. The shortage, however, only compounds existing problems with the programme: Critics say it has been dysfunctional for years.

The spike in applications following the 2021 troop withdrawal, advocates add, has only amplified the mile-high application backlog.

There are relatively few options outside of the Special Immigrant Visas — and they too suffer from long wait times and tight caps on the number of applicants admitted.

Some Afghans who evacuated in 2021 were granted humanitarian parole, a temporary status with no pathway to permanent residency or citizenship. Others have applied for asylum status, although that process is likewise backlogged and can take years, with no guarantee of success.

A victim of partisanship

Support for the special visa programme has historically been bipartisan in the US, due in no small part to widespread advocacy from veterans groups, according to Adam Bates, a supervisory policy counsel at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP).

In many ways, he said, the programme has been “compartmentalised away from the broader immigration debate”.

“The Afghan SIV program has been around since 2009. For that entire time period, it has enjoyed widespread bipartisan support,” said Bates. “It had support across presidential administrations, even during the [Donald] Trump administration.”

Bates is among the advocates who worry the programme may be falling victim to partisanship in Congress, heightened by November’s impending general elections. The immigration debate has played a prominent role in campaigns so far.

Joseph Azam, a lawyer and board member for the Afghan-American Foundation, told Al Jazeera he fears other issues are overshadowing the Special Immigrant Visa programme for Afghans.

“For whatever reason — because we’re in election year, there are other things going on in the world, or people are just not paying attention — this programme has gotten to the point of almost withering away,” he said.

“That would be catastrophic for the tens of thousands of Afghans who have been left behind, who are in hiding with their families and were some of the first on the kill list for the Taliban when they took over.”

Azam noted that no legislators have spoken out in opposition to the Afghan programme, but he nevertheless feared that the visas could become a political tool during the election season.

President Joe Biden has been widely criticised for his handling of the chaotic troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Azam said the episode could be used as a “cudgel” for his critics in Congress.

“Perhaps there’s a sense that, if they passed [the additional SIVs], it would kind of address some part of the wound,” he said.

Azam added that politicians might be seeking to avoid perceptions that they are lax on immigration. “Immigrant populations — particularly from that part of the world — are very convenient boogeyman during an election year.”

‘A backstab’ to Afghans

Helal Massomi, the Afghan policy adviser for the nonprofit Global Refuge group, is herself an evacuee who fled to safety in the US. She previously held an advisory role in the US-backed Afghan government, helping to lead peace talks before the Taliban takeover.

She worried that Congress’s apparent indifference to the Afghans who worked with the US military could be a canary in the coal mine. If Congress will not act to protect those Afghans, she wondered, will it act to protect any Afghans in vulnerable situations?

“This shows that, with every day that passes, the commitment that was out there for standing by the allies — the Afghan allies — is fading away,” she told Al Jazeera.

Massomi has recently led efforts to pass legislation that would create a pathway to residency for the Afghans evacuated to the US. But those bills have languished in Congress amid Republican opposition.

She has also pushed for more immigration pathways for vulnerable Afghans outside of the US. That includes an expansion of the Priority 2 (P-2) programme, which was set up to offer access to Afghans who worked with US-based organisations but do not qualify for Special Immigrant Visas.

She noted that some of the most vocal critics of Biden’s Afghan policy have remained silent on the issue of approving more SIVs.

“I completely support criticism towards the administration,” she said. “But you can’t do it if you yourself are in inaction.”

The message that inaction sends is chilling, she added. “I think it’s a backstab to the Afghans who stood by the army and the American citizens in Afghanistan.”

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US Senate leader Chuck Schumer calls for new Israel elections amid Gaza war | Israel War on Gaza News

The top legislator in the United States Senate, Chuck Schumer, has offered his most strident criticism of Israel since the war in Gaza began, calling for a leadership shake-up in the country.

On Thursday, Schumer, a Jewish-American Democrat, took direct aim at Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a speech from the US Senate floor, saying the Israeli leader has been “too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza”.

Schumer pushed Israel to hold elections to replace Netanyahu and said the prime minister had “lost his way” in his pursuit of “political survival”.

“There needs to be a fresh debate about the future of Israel after October 7,” Schumer said, referring to the date when the Palestinian group Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel, spurring the present-day war.

“As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders, and we should let the chips fall where they may,” Schumer continued. “But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice.”

Schumer, the Senate majority leader, did not suggest a timeline for any eventual vote, though.

More than 31,341 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, many of them children. The spiralling death toll has prompted widespread condemnation and fears of genocide in the territory.

But President Joe Biden and other prominent US leaders have largely been circumspect in their criticism of Israel’s military campaign. The US is a longtime ally of Israel, and it contributes approximately $3.8bn in aid to the country every year.

Still, Schumer’s words — and more vocal criticisms from Biden himself — have signalled a shift in the approach Democratic leadership is taking towards Israel, amid mounting public pressure to seek a permanent ceasefire.

“We should not let the complexities of this conflict stop us from stating the plain truth: Palestinian civilians do not deserve to suffer for the sins of Hamas, and Israel has a moral obligation to do better,” Schumer said in his speech. “The United States has an obligation to do better.”

Schumer added that Netanyahu was one of several “major obstacles” to a two-state solution that might eventually resolve the conflict. Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected the notion of a two-state solution, despite the Biden administration insisting it should be a cornerstone of any post-war plans.

Given the Israeli government’s refusal so far to change course, Schumer hinted that the US may be forced to “play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using leverage”.

Response to Schumer’s speech

The speech marks one of the most direct and biting speeches given by a high-ranking US political leader during the war’s first five months.

And it quickly prompted a response, both from the Israeli government and the Biden administration.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller said Schumer’s comments were his own and did not represent the stance of the administration.

“There are a number of things we wanted to see Israel do differently,” Miller acknowledged nevertheless.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich weighed in as well, condemning Schumer’s remarks.

“We expect the largest democracy in the world to respect Israeli democracy,” Smotrich said.

US Republicans, for their part, used the speech to blast the Democratic leadership. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, for instance, described Schumer’s call for new elections in Israel “grotesque and hypocritical”.

“The Jewish state of Israel deserves an ally that acts like one,” McConnell said.

Critics push for action

Schumer attempted to preemptively fend off such criticism during his speech, underscoring his pro-Israel bona fides. As the highest-ranking Jewish person in US government, he also drew on his family’s history with the Holocaust to underscore his sympathy for the Israeli plight.

“If the events of the last few months have made anything clear, it is that Israel is surrounded by vicious enemies, and there are many people around the world who excuse and even support their aims to expel and kill Jews living in their hard-won land of refuge,” Schumer said.

But while Schumer and other top Democratic leaders have remained stalwart in their support of Israel, their rhetoric has shifted in recent weeks to be increasingly critical of its military campaign.

Biden, for instance, has warned Israel about pursuing a ground operation in the southern city of Rafah, calling it a “red line“. Officials have also denounced Israeli impediments to the distribution of aid in Gaza.

Still, critics of the administration have said such words are empty without more material action.

Earlier this week, for instance, eight US senators — including Vermont’s Bernie Sanders — issued a letter to the president calling on him to premise aid to Israel on the condition that access to humanitarian aid in Gaza be expanded — and any impediments removed.

Settler sanctions

Schumer’s speech on Thursday also came as the US announced more sanctions on Israeli settlers and illegal outposts in the occupied West Bank — one area the Biden administration has shown more willingness to act.

The US Department of State said the outposts known as Moshes Farm and Zvis Farm had been bases for violence against Palestinians. Thursday’s sanctions also targeted three illegal Israeli settlers.

The administration in February imposed sanctions on four Israeli men it accused of being involved in settler violence in the occupied West Bank, which has surged since October 7.

“It is critical that Israel take additional action to stop settler violence and hold accountable those responsible for it, not just for the sake of the victims of this violence, but for Israel’s own security and standing in the world,” Miller, the State Department spokesman, told reporters.

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