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Rashida Tlaib
US-Armed Israeli Military Kills American Citizen in Lebanon
"The State Department is leaving Americans behind and failing to protect their own citizens," said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represented Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad.
Oct 03, 2024
Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon killed a United States citizen earlier this week as the Biden administration faced growing backlash for failing to evacuate Americans from the country, which is under intense assault from a military armed to the teeth by the U.S.
Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad was killed by an Israeli strike on Tuesday in his hometown of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, according to a statement from his family. Jawad was a resident of Dearborn, Michigan and a constituent of U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
"In his last days, he chose to stay near the main hospital in Nabatieh to help the elderly, disabled, injured, and those who simply couldn't financially afford to flee," Jawad's family said. "He served as their guardian, provided them with food, mattresses, and other comforts, and anonymously paid off their debts."
The Biden White House confirmed Jawad's death in a statement Wednesday—but did not acknowledge that an Israeli strike killed him.
"We are deeply saddened by the death of Kamel Ahmad Jawad and our hearts go out to his family and friends," said a White House spokesperson. "His death is a tragedy, as are the deaths of many civilians in Lebanon."
Earlier Wednesday, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said it is "our understanding that [Jawad] was a legal permanent resident, not an American citizen"—a statement contradicted by Jawad's family and Tlaib's office, which toldReuters he was a U.S. citizen.
"His life is one of over 50,000 lost at the hands of Israeli aggression across the Middle East," Jawad's family said. "The fact that he was an American citizen should not make his story more important than others."
"Americans of Lebanese descent have been treated as lesser U.S. citizens than Israeli U.S. citizens. It is as if we don't exist."
More than 1,000 people—roughly a quarter of them women and children—have been killed by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since mid-September. The U.S. has backed Israel's assault on Lebanon and sent additional troops to the region to bolster its Israeli ally.
As Israeli forces continue to pummel Beirut and proceed with their ground invasion, the Biden administration has faced outrage for failing to swiftly evacuate U.S. citizens from Lebanon; thousands of Americans live and work in the country.
While other countries—including Germany, China, and Canada—have moved to evacuate their citizens from the country, the U.S. has been accused of lagging behind.
During a press briefing on Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the administration has been working over the past several days "to make seats available or to find seats available on existing commercial flights."
"We have been able to identify over 800 seats over that time," said Miller. "A number of them have been used by American citizens... Not in all cases have they been filled. And then today we were able to organize a flight from Beirut to Istanbul to allow other American citizens to leave."
In a social media post late Wednesday, Tlaib said her office has "been desperately trying to help" 148 residents from her district evacuate Lebanon. Zeteonoted that Tlaib said in an Instagram video that it is a "disgrace" that her staff has had to "beg" the Biden administration to help evacuate her constituents.
"One of my constituents was already killed in an Israeli airstrike," said Tlaib, referring to Jawad. "The State Department is leaving Americans behind and failing to protect their own citizens."
One American citizen identified as Karam toldAl Jazeera that she "called the U.S. embassy in Beirut for help fleeing the violence," but "was told to find a way out of the country by herself," the outlet reported.
"Karam, who chose to be identified by her nickname out of fear of retaliation, drew a contrast with how the US State Department swiftly chartered special flights and a ship to evacuate American citizens in Israel after Hamas' October 7 attack last year," Al Jazeera noted.
"Americans of Lebanese descent have been treated as lesser U.S. citizens than Israeli U.S. citizens," she said. "It is as if we don't exist."
Abbas Alawieh, co-founder of the Uncommitted National Movement and a Lebanese American, said Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have "repeatedly" turned down requests to meet with Americans like him who have family members in Lebanon.
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'So Sick': War Profiteer Stocks Jump as Iran Strikes Israel
"Remember that members of Congress are permitted to own stock in war manufacturing, so when they vote to send more bombs or send our loved ones to war, they profit personally," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
Oct 01, 2024
Mirroring Wall Street's response to Israel launching its assault on the Gaza Strip nearly a year ago, stocks of companies that make money off of war soared on Tuesday after Israelis initiated a ground invasion into Lebanon and Iran sent scores of ballistic missiles toward Tel Aviv and other targets.
Zeteo's Prem Thakker highlighted the performance by three key American multinationals—Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX, formerly known as Raytheon—and noted that it came "while the wider market is down today."
CNBC similarly attributed the market's Tuesday trends to "growing tensions in the Middle East" and reported that another U.S. defense contractor, L3Harris Technologies, "advanced 3%."
Responding to Thakker's observations on social media, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) called the trends "so sick."
"Remember that members of Congress are permitted to own stock in war manufacturing, so when they vote to send more bombs or send our loved ones to war, they profit personally," added Tlaib, a critic of war in general but especially Israel's recent violence.
Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, has condemned the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza—launched after a Hamas-led attack on Israel—as genocidal. Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice.
As of Tuesday, officials in Hamas-governed Gaza put the death toll at 41,638, with 96,460 people injured, though thousands remain missing in the remnants of devastated civilian infrastructure across the coastal enclave.
In addition to bombing and starving Palestinians in Gaza, Israel—which receives billions of dollars in annual U.S. military support—has stoked fears of a wider regional war with a July assassination of a Hamas leader in the Iranian capital of Tehran and its recent escalation in Lebanon, home to the political and paramilitary group Hezbollah.
The White House said Tuesday that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for the November election, "are monitoring the Iranian attack against Israel from the White House Situation Room and receiving regular updates from their national security team. President Biden directed the U.S. military to aid Israel's defense against Iranian attacks and shoot down missiles that are targeting Israel."
Meanwhile, there has been growing criticism of seemingly unconditional U.S. support for Israel's right-wing government in Congress. However, as Sludge pointed out Tuesday, some lawmakers are set to benefit from companies that are doing well thanks to the bloodshed and instability in the Middle East.
Sludge cited recent reporting by co-founder David Moore, who detailed how "at least 50 members of Congress or other members of their households hold stock in defense contractors, companies that receive hundreds of billions of dollars annually from congressionally crafted Pentagon appropriations legislation."
"The total value of the federal lawmakers, defense contractors stock holdings could be as much as $10.9 million," wrote Moore, who analyzed 2023 financial disclosures and stock trades. "The most widely held defense contractor stock among senators and representatives is Honeywell, an American company that makes sensors and guiding devices that are being used by the Israeli military in its airstrikes in Gaza."
Tlaib has introduced the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act, which would ban members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from trading defense stocks or having financial interests in companies that do business with the U.S. Department of Defense.
This post has been updated with a reference to the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act.
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Tlaib Slams US-Funded 'Bloodbath' as Biden Calls Israel Bombing Lebanon 'Justice'
"The U.S. government are conspirators to the war criminal Netanyahu's genocidal plan," said the Michigan Democrat.
Sep 28, 2024
U.S. President Joe Biden and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Saturday had notably different responses to Israel's intense bombing campaign in Lebanon over the past 24 hours, which killed hundreds of people including key Hezbollah leaders.
"Our country is funding this bloodbath," Tlaib (D-Mich.) said on social media Saturday morning, sharing a post from Zeteo's Prem Thakker with videos of the Israeli assault on Lebanon that began Friday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in New York City to address the United Nations General Assembly.
"Sending more of our troops and bombs to the region is not advancing peace," added Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress and a leading critic of Israel's yearlong genocide in the Gaza Strip. "The U.S. government are conspirators to the war criminal Netanyahu's genocidal plan."
In the post shared by Tlaib, Thakker noted that "the U.S. was reportedly informed of this mass Israeli attack on Beirut in Lebanon shortly beforehand," which "comes just one day after [the] U.S. released $8.7 billion more in aid to Israel."
Tlaib also shared that her office is fielding "desperate calls" from U.S. citizens who are struggling to leave Lebanon. She declared that "the mission of the U.S. Department of State is to protect Americans, and they are failing AGAIN."
Biden, meanwhile, began his Saturday afternoon statement by noting that Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, which the Iran-backed Lebanese political and paramilitary group confirmed earlier in the day—a development that elevated fears of a broader regional war.
"Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror," Biden said. "His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians."
The president continued:
The strike that killed Nasrallah took place in the broader context of the conflict that began with Hamas' massacre on October 7, 2023. Nasrallah, the next day, made the fateful decision to join hands with Hamas and open what he called a "northern front" against Israel.
The United States fully supports Israel's right to defend itself against Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and any other Iranian-supported terrorist groups. Just yesterday, I directed my secretary of defense to further enhance the defense posture of U.S. military forces in the Middle East region to deter aggression and reduce the risk of a broader regional war.
Ultimately, our aim is to de-escalate the ongoing conflicts in both Gaza and Lebanon through diplomatic means. In Gaza, we have been pursuing a deal backed by the U.N. Security Council for a ceasefire and the release of hostages. In Lebanon, we have been negotiating a deal that would return people safely to their homes in Israel and southern Lebanon. It is time for these deals to close, for the threats to Israel to be removed, and for the broader Middle East region to gain greater stability.
While the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) thanked Biden "for standing with our democratic ally Israel," journalists from around the world and other critics highlighted that his statement "has not a word on civilian casualties."
Ali Abunimah, director of The Electronic Intifada, was among those who pointed out that Biden said the "assassination of Nasrallah, in an Israeli massacre that killed hundreds, 'is a measure of justice for his many victims.'"
"Utterly depraved, and by this twisted, criminal Biden logic, those who tried to assassinate Trump were also instruments of 'justice," Abunimah said, referring to former U.S. President Donald Trump, Republican nominee for the November election.
Middle East expert Assal Rad said: "Biden calls massive bombs in a densely-populated area that leveled six apartment buildings in Lebanon 'a measure of justice.' The torching of international law and the precedent that is being set should terrify us all."
Rad also slammed Biden's cease-fire call, saying: "This is nonsense. You can't provide the funding and weapons to continue the conflict *without* conditions, twist humanitarian law to give Israel total impunity, and reject every international institution that seeks accountability, and then say your 'aim is to de-escalate.'"
Others recalled Israel's 2004 assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, which also killed seven other people. The administration of former Republican U.S. President George W. Bush—who launched the global War on Terror in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks—didn't issue a forceful condemnation like some European leaders, but a spokesperson for the State Department said at the time that "we are deeply troubled" by the attack.
As'ad Abukhalil, a Lebanese American professor at California State University, Stanislus, declared Saturday that "there has been no U.S. president EVER who has unconditionally allowed unrestrained Israeli savagery in the Middle East as Biden has done."
Abukhalil warned that "the U.S. will suffer for years to come from the policies of Biden in the Middle East," which he described as "more far-reaching [than] Bush's."
Biden, a Democrat, was initially seeking reelection in November, but after a disastrous summer debate performance against Trump, he passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. After putting out Biden's Saturday statement, the White House released a similar one from Harris—which was also lauded by AIPAC.
"Hassan Nasrallah was a terrorist with American blood on his hands. Across decades, his leadership of Hezbollah destabilized the Middle East and led to the killing of countless innocent people in Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and around the world. Today, Hezbollah's victims have a measure of justice," Harris said. "I have an unwavering commitment to the security of Israel. I will always support Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis."
"President Biden and I do not want to see conflict in the Middle East escalate into a broader regional war," she added. "We have been working on a diplomatic solution along the Israel-Lebanon border so that people can safely return home on both sides of that border. Diplomacy remains the best path forward to protect civilians and achieve lasting stability in the region."
In response, Margaret Zaknoen DeReus, executive director at the California-based Institute for Middle East Understanding, said: "Like Biden, not a word from the VP , from the candidate of joy & freedom, about the 1,000+ Lebanese men, women and children Israel obliterated. Not a word about hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced, entire city blocks destroyed. We don't exist as human beings to this [administration]."
Responding to both statements on social media, the anti-war group CodePink said that the Biden-Harris administration "believes flattening a residential area with... bombs is 'justice.'"
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