Despite 30-day Gaza aid ultimatum, US says support for Israel will proceed
Displaced Palestinians fleeing the northern part of Gaza amid an Israeli assault on Gaza City, 12 November 2024
Ali Harb reports in Al Jazeera on 12 November 2024:
Washington, DC – The United States was unambiguous in a message to Israel last month: Take specific steps within 30 days to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or face consequences.
The deadline has now passed, and the United Nations is warning that famine is “imminent” in parts of northern Gaza. But there will be no consequences for Israel, the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.
“We, at this time, have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law,” State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters. He argued that Israel had made “some progress” to allow more aid into the besieged territory but the US “would like to see some more changes happen”.
Patel would not say whether the specific conditions set out by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin in an October 13 letter to Israeli leaders had been met. The US assertion caused fury among Palestinian rights advocates, who dismissed the entire push as another ploy to distract from Washington’s complicity in Israel’s killing and starvation of Palestinians.
It also came on the same day that Biden met Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the White House, where the latter said they held a “productive meeting”.
‘Charade’
Tariq Kenney-Shawa, policy fellow at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, a US-based think tank, called the Blinken-Austin letter, which was presented as an ultimatum, a “charade”.
“Biden has no intention of using his final months in office to better the humanitarian situation in Gaza or work towards a lasting ceasefire or hostage exchange, despite what he might say, and it should be clear that every step his administration has taken has been to buy Israel time and shield it from accountability,” Kenney-Shawa told Al Jazeera in a statement.