US threatened to cancel Biden visit to Israel over Gaza aid - The Jewish Chronicle

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has revealed that the White House threatened Israel that it would cancel that President Biden’s trip to the country, just 11 days after October 7, if the Jewish state did not agree to US demands on letting aid into Gaza - despite Biden administration officials subsequently boasting that Biden was ”the first president to visit Israel in a time of war.”

In an interview published by the New York Times on Saturday, Blinken said: “The very first trip that I made to Israel five days after October 7, I spent with my team nine hours in the IDF’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, six stories underground with the Israeli government, including the prime minister, including arguing for hours on end about the basic proposition that the humanitarian assistance needed to get to Palestinians in Gaza”.

The argument took place, Blinken told the paper, because Israelis were “totally traumatised.”

“This wasn’t just the prime minister or a given leader in Israel. This was an entire society that didn’t want any assistance getting to a single Palestinian in Gaza. I argued that for nine hours,” Blinken said. “President Biden was planning to come to Israel a few days later, and in the course of that argument, when I was getting resistance to the proposition of humanitarian assistance getting in, I told the prime minister, ‘I’m going to call the president and tell him not to come if you don’t allow this assistance to start flowing.'”

Blinken told the New York Times that he “called the president to make sure that he agreed with that, and he fully did.”

“We got the agreement to begin assistance through Rafah, which we expanded to Kerem Shalom and many other places. We’ve tried all along to look out for the needs of so many people who’ve been caught in this horrific crossfire,” he told the Times. “And we have a traumatised Palestinian population.”

Blinken said that aid in Gaza has been “grossly insufficient.” He and other senior US officials have said in the past that Hamas seizes aid that enters Gaza.

Blinken told the paper that Hamas isn’t receiving sufficient blame.

“Why there hasn’t been a unanimous chorus around the world for Hamas to put down its weapons, to give up the hostages, to surrender—I don’t know what the answer is to that,” he said. “Israel, on various occasions has offered safe passage to Hamas’s leadership and fighters out of Gaza. Where is the world? Where is the world, saying, Yeah, do that! End this! Stop the suffering of people that you brought on!”

Blinken’s interview with comes amid reports that the Biden administration is seeking to agree a $8 billion arms deal with Israel before President Joe Biden leaves office on January 20.

Any agreement would have to be approved by the House of Representatives and Senate.

Citing two sources with direct knowledge of the matter, new site Axios reported that the State Department has notified Congress informally about the proposed deal, involving munitions for fighter jets and attack helicopters as well as artillery shells.

The weapons include AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles for fighter jets to defend against airborne threats, drones, 155mm artillery shells and Hellfire AGM-114 missiles for attack helicopters, small diameter bombs, JDAM (Joint Direct Attack Munition) tail kits that convert “dumb bombs” into all-weather precision-guided munitions, 500-lb warheads and bomb fuses.

The State Department informed Congress that the deal’s goal is to support “Israel’s long-term security by resupplying stocks of critical munitions and air defence capabilities,” one source said.

“The president has made clear Israel has a right to defend its citizens, consistent with international law and international humanitarian law, and to deter aggression from Iran and its proxy organisations. We will continue to provide the capabilities necessary for Israel’s defence,” a US official was quoted as saying.

Tensions between Washington and Jerusalem over Israel’s handling of the war in the Gaza Strip, with concerns about humanitarian aid entering the Palestinian territory and civilians suffering from collateral damage, have been reported throughout the conflict.

Last June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly criticised the US for withholding weapons to Israel.

“When Secretary (of State Antony) Blinken was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation. I said I deeply appreciated the support the US has given Israel from the beginning of the war. But I also said something else. I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel,” the premier said in a video message.

“Israel, America’s closest ally, fighting for its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies,” Netanyahu continued. “Secretary Blinken assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks. I certainly hope that’s the case. It should be the case.

“During World War II, [Prime Minister Winston] Churchill told the United States, ‘Give us the tools, we’ll do the job.’ And I say, give us the tools and we’ll finish the job a lot faster,” Netanyahu said.

In September last year, Republican senators Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell wrote to Biden, saying that his administration is withholding additional arms to Israel.

“Despite ongoing discussions between the United States and Israel, your administration has failed to fast-track and approve the sale of Apache attack helicopters,” the lawmakers wrote. “Israel requested these helicopters last December, recognising the increased need given the war in Gaza. That need has only increased with Hezbollah’s escalation in the north.”

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