President Joe Biden is learning Israel makes for a clumsy dance partner, and the alliance seems to grow more awkward by the day.
Israel this week began a deadly air and ground invasion of Rafah – the last place of relative respite for 1.4 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza – against Washington's warnings and despite Hamas accepting one version of a ceasefire deal.
Israel declined the proposal, saying it would send negotiators to Cairo for further talks. The White House has predicted that Israel and Hamas should be able to close the gaps.
But that invasion is at the centre of what appears to be the first show of restraint from the Biden administration in terms of its military support for Israel.
This week, it paused the shipment of thousands of weapons to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs that often cause broad collateral damage – a controversial move in itself, in a deeply pro-Israel Washington.
I obtained a letter from two high-ranking Republican senators that demanded Mr Biden answer questions about the hold, expressing “shock” and raising questions about transparency after Congress approved billions of dollars for a swift transfer of aid to Israel.
The letter would be the first of a flood of statements of protest against the decision from Congress, which is responsible for approving the US budget, including foreign and military aid.
But President Biden is giving his strongest words yet - telling CNN last night he would outright stop sending bombs to Israel if it fully invades Rafah.
"Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those [2,000 pound] bombs and other ways in which they go after population centres,” he said.
It's not the only tricky position Israel has put the Biden administration in this week.
The State Department yesterday missed a congressional deadline to file a report detailing whether it believes Israel has violated US or international law in Gaza, a ruling that is likely to anger much of the political establishment.
The list of potential crimes in Gaza is lengthy. The International Criminal Court may be issuing a warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And a growing faction of progressives in Mr Biden's Democratic Party are sounding the alarm over rights abuse concerns, too, as Gaza faces famine.
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EYE ON 2024
Opinion: How India-US relations could change after the 2024 elections
This year the US and India are both holding national elections, the outcomes of which will shape the trajectory of bilateral relations for at least half a decade, The National contributor Johann Chacko writes.
Voters in both countries are choosing more than just a leader or party; they are also voting between markedly different styles of interaction with the rest of the world.
But just how different would the relationship between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden be from the one between Mr Modi and Mr Biden’s primary challenger, Donald Trump?
What's Washington talking about?
House Speaker Mike Johnson In a 359-43 vote, the US House of Representatives yesterday overwhelmingly rejected a last-ditch effort by far-right Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene to remove Speaker Johnson from his role. Ms Greene brought the motion to vacate to the floor after whirlwind week of talks, accusing Mr Johnson of caving to Democrats by allowing the eventual passing of a $95 billion foreign aid package.
Jordan's King Abdullah Following a White House meeting with President Biden, Jordan's King Abdullah II discussed the state of play in Gaza with US politicians amid rifts between Amman and Congress. The Jordanian embassy said that in meetings with both the House and the Senate, King Abdullah “renewed the call on the international community to step up efforts to reach an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza”. Meanwhile, in their own readouts, Washington officials sidestepped clear differences, with Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Ben Cardin omitting the word “ceasefire” and saying he advocated “an immediate hostage deal”.
Campus protests Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser and Metropolitan Police chief Pamela Smith were called to testify yesterday at the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, but the hearing was cancelled after police shutdown a protest camp at George Washington University. Representative James Comer, the committee's chairman, said he was “very pleased” with the shutdown, as Republicans continue to promise a crackdown on demonstrations nationwide.
Holocaust Remembrance Day President Biden, joined by survivors and bipartisan members of Congress, held a sombre ceremony on Capitol Hill to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day, honouring the more than six million Jews killed by the Nazis during the Second World War. Survivors gave powerful testimonies of hope and heartbreak, sang Jewish resistance songs and recited the Kaddish. Mr Biden reiterated his “ironclad” support for Israel, while House Speaker Johnson condemned campus protests, and the large audience applauded the controversial anti-Semitism bill passed in the House which includes anti-Zionism in its definition of anti-Semitism.
QUOTED
“Some wonder why there was such overwhelming support for us to shut down potentially TikTok or other entities of that nature; if you look at the posting on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians relative to other social media sites, it's overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts”
– Republican Senator Mitt Romney asks Secretary of State Antony Blinken why public perception is increasingly critical of Israel
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Spotlight: Police clear pro-Palestine protest camps at several universities
US police have arrested thousands in recent weeks as demonstrators set up protest camps, calling on universities to divest from companies and academic institutions with ties to Israel.
George Washington University in Washington became the latest site of a police sweep in yesterday's early morning hours, with video circulating online of police aggressively raiding the tented camp site there.
Police cleared camps at New York University and The New School in Manhattan early on Friday, after protesters ignored requests to disperse.
Only in America
TikTok sues US government over potential ban, citing First Amendment
TikTok is suing the US government over a new law that will force its Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest the popular video app or face a ban across the country, which it says would breach First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit marks the first legal challenge since Congress passed the law in April, with TikTok saying the legislation will stifle free speech and hurt creators and small business owners who benefit from the platform, in breach of their rights enshrined in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
“For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide,” the company said in a filing on Tuesday with the US Court of Appeals in Washington.
READ MORE
| How the Gaza war tore apart US Jewish community hit by deadly attack | |
| Leahy Law, and why its sponsor says it's been breached in Gaza | |
| US repatriates 11 citizens from north-east Syria |
