Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is a leader in the Democratic foreign policy establishment, gave an extraordinary speech on the Senate floor on Monday night, excoriating the Netanyahu government for deliberately blocking aid to civilians. He and Sen. Jeff Merkley traveled to the Egypt side of the Rafah crossing around five weeks ago, and Van Hollen came back livid at Israel’s deliberate stalling of aid. On the Senate floor, he said that he had recently heard reports that children are now beyond starving and are actually dying of starvation. He texted Cindy McCain, the head of the World Food Programme, and asked if the rumors were true. He quoted her response to him: “This is true. We are unable to get in enough food to keep people from the brink. Famine is imminent. I wish I had better news.”
He drove the point home: “Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true: That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals,” he said , adding that he had recently spoken with officials at humanitarian relief organizations. “Every one of them, every one, has stated that their organizations have never experienced a humanitarian disaster as dire and terrible as the world is witnessing in Gaza.”
The senator’s speech pulsed with moral clarity — until it petered out into a stumbling rationale for his forthcoming yes vote. He would still be voting to send some $14 billion to the people he had just described as “war criminals,” he said, because the bill also included $60 billion for Ukraine’s war effort and humanitarian aid for Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere. (It also ponies up $8 billion for a Taiwan war effort.) He acknowledged that the aid money wouldn’t be worth anything to the Palestinians if Netanyahu wouldn’t let it in, and he pleaded with Biden to pressure Netanyahu to do so. But if even this level of moral clarity from somebody like Van Hollen isn’t matched with any action, it’s hard to see why those pleas will be heard this time.
When the roll was called, only Sen. Bernie Sanders and Merkley, Van Hollen’s companion on that recent trip to Rafah, voted no. It needed 60 votes to overcome a filibuster, and thanks to significant opposition from Republicans, it only got 66. A small bloc of Democrats could have blocked it and forced the Senate to consider each spending piece separately.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Israel Defense Forces can’t say it was the unfortunate but unintended consequence of a strike on a terrorist, because we know that the Red Crescent was in direct communication with the IDF, which therefore knew that an ambulance was heading to those precise coordinates to rescue a little girl.
Somebody higher up signed off on it, if the snippets of cockpit and drone operator recordings from previous Israeli assaults represent standard practices.
Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, spoke with unusual emotion about Hind’s killing at the daily briefing on Monday afternoon.
From there, Associated Press reporter Matt Lee jumped in to ask whether the State Department had ever gotten any results after it demanded Israel investigate the blowing up of the Islamic University of Gaza.
“Should there be a second-level investigation into her killing?” I’m not exactly sure what I meant by “second level” — it’s sometimes awkward for me to watch the clips back and wish I could phrase something differently — but something independent, something with higher jurisdiction, like the International Criminal Court, would be appropriate.
He and Sen. Jeff Merkley traveled to the Egypt side of the Rafah crossing around five weeks ago, and Van Hollen came back livid at Israel’s deliberate stalling of aid.
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