Gaza pier used for aid delivery has been reconnected, U.S. officials say
Gaza pier used for aid delivery has been reconnected, U.S. officials say
The U.S.'s $230 million humanitarian-aid effort had been off to a slow start before a storm upended the operation.
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Sorry... how will letting aid trucks into Gaza put food in the hands of starving Palestinians?
You know what aid trucks are, right?
Look we either spend a billion a year rebuilding this thing or we start looking for actual solutions to the problems we've caused. Do you want that? I thought so.
You can't be dense enough to believe that if the US stops sending Isreal aid, that suddenly Isreal will suddenly magically be completely disarmed, and aid trucks will suddenly be able to move freely. Aid trucks aren't even on the table.
Since that's not even close to what I said, no, that's not what I believe.
And what other conclusion is there to your answers?
Me: How would YOU put food into Palestinian hands?
You: Stop sending aid to Isreal.
Me: How does that put food in Palestinian hands?
You: Aid trucks
If that was what I said, you would be right. However, this is what I said:
I’d say the U.S. not offering Israel any more support until they open the borders to aid would go a long way to solving things.
I'm not sure why you think that sort of thing doesn't motivate a country we're giving billions of dollars in aid to, but it does.
However, this is what you said in response:
You can’t be dense enough to believe that if the US stops sending Isreal aid, that suddenly Isreal will suddenly magically be completely disarmed, and aid trucks will suddenly be able to move freely. Aid trucks aren’t even on the table.
I said nothing about disarming Israel. And I know aid trucks are not on the table, because no one is motivating Israel to put them on the table. Again, withholding the billions of dollars in money and weapons we're sending to Israel would go a long way to getting them to let aid trucks in to feed people. You seem to be suggesting that not sending them more weapons than they already have is disarming them. Which it is not.
Or are you saying Israel doesn't need American money and weapons anyway? Then maybe America should just stop giving them money and weapons regardless.
My point is that stopping aid to Isreal won't put food in Palestinian bellies any time soon. And when they're starving right now, it's a useless gesture.
Actually doing what CAN be done right now, which is bypassing land chokepoints by building a non-perfect dock to offload millions of lbs of food, is the best solution I've heard of thus far, to actually stave off the immediate problem of starvation.
I'm not saying I approve of continuing to send military aid to Isreal. We can attack this from multiple fronts, but getting food and medical aid into Gaza is the most urgent need. And I don't find your efforts to undermine the most effective, if flawed, means of getting those supplies into Gaza to be helping the Palestinian's plight in the slightest.
You are either completely unknowledgable about the situation there or arguing in bad faith. But giving you the benefit of the doubt. There is more than enough aid waiting since months just outside the borders. Israel took over the Rafah crossing to Egypt, murdering two Egyptian soldiers in the process. There also enough aid is waiting.
By stopping to arm Israel the US might not provide food literally tomorrow, but within short time. That pier took over two months to build. More than enough time for the US to pressure Israel into behaving.
Again Israel could let in aid today if they wanted to. They could stop bombing hospitals, ambulances, aid workers, refugee shelters right now if they wanted to. The US could make them want that. And if simply cutting weapons wouldnt be enough the US could declare a no fly zone and break Israels chokeholds on the border crossings by force if necessary. The US could threaten and employ a sanctions regime that would threaten to vaporize the Israeli economy, making any government resign within days.
But the US doesnt do that. The US doesnt want that. The US wants to cover for this genocide and just pretend doing something about it, which is why they build an expensive pier for months that doesnt deliver aid and then breaks apart, while watching the single attempted aid delivery to be denied by the Israeli genocidal forces.
You claim I'm arguing in bad faith, but all your points make insanely huge assumptions on what the US is plausibly capable of forcing, and in an insanely short timespan. Particularly taking into account how little Isreal has been willing to negotiate in good faith currently and in past.
The Pier took 2 months to build. It took two weeks to repair. So claiming this to be an "insanely short time span" is already wrong. And it is not enough. The US would need to build another 5 of the same piers to bring in enough aid on that route, ignoring the need to distribute it, which Israel again is blocking. So would you rather build piers for ten months instead of stopping to send arms to the people who block the available land routes?
I would rather do both, because I find it incredibly unlikely that stopping arms shipments today would do anything at all to dampen Israel's ability to blockaid the land routes for a very long time. I also don't think Isreal is incapable of finding weapons suppliers outside of the US if push comes to shove.
So you're saying the U.S. has zero leverage on Israel?
No. I'm saying that relying on that leverage completely, and expecting a fast and complete solution, and allowing the Gazians to starve to death if that hailmerry doesn't work, is completely asinine.
And that's not even taking into account what the absolute 180 on foreign policy WRT Isreal will cost us in the short and long term. It could very possibly give the entire election over to the Republicans. Which would obviously be even worse for Gaza.
Fast and complete? This pier took two months to build. They could have spent that two months pressuring Israel to open aid corridors for trucking.
And I'm sorry, "we have to aid Israel in its genocide to stop the Republicans from winning" is a bullshit excuse.
They could have spent that two months pressuring Israel to open aid corridors for trucking.
And most likely have nothing to show for it. At least the dock has already achieved getting millions of pounds of aid into Gaza, and hopefully many more millions before it breaks again.
And I’m sorry, “we have to aid Israel in its genocide to stop the Republicans from winning” is a bullshit excuse.
Maybe to you, but it's a real risk. Not everyone lives in this progressive bubble of yours. I have zero confidence in the voting public, and I have far less confidence that the Republicans won't actively encourage genocide in Gaza and beyond given the president and a majority in the other branches.