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peter welch
Senators Decry Biden's Decision to Fully Fund Egypt Despite Ongoing Rights Abuses
"Over the last year, for every single political prisoner Egypt has released, it has jailed two more," lamented U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy.
Sep 12, 2024
Several Democratic U.S. senators on Thursday denounced the Biden administration's decision to send $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt despite enduring human rights abuses by the Middle Eastern country's authoritarian regime.
U.S. State Antony Blinken this week waived human rights conditions attached to $225 million of the aid package, citing Egypt's strategic importance and the country's role in attempts to broker a cease-fire agreement that would halt the assault on Gaza by Israel, which is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.
"It's no secret that Egypt remains a deeply repressive autocratic state."
"This decision waives requirements on an additional $225 million of military aid to Egypt that is tied to broader improvements on democracy and human rights," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Ct.) said in a statement on Thursday.
"It's no secret that Egypt remains a deeply repressive autocratic state, and I see no good reason to ignore that fact by waiving these requirements," the senator added. "We have previously withheld this portion of Egypt's military aid package, while still maintaining our strategic relationship, and we should continue to do so."
On Wednesday, Murphy and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) issued a joint statement decrying Biden's decision to fully fund Egypt, focusing on a separate $95 million share of aid released by the administration.
"The law is clear: Egypt is required to make 'clear and consistent progress' in releasing political prisoners in order to receive $95 million—a small portion—of its $1.3 billion military aid package this year," the senators wrote. "The Egyptian government has failed that test."
"Over the last year, for every single political prisoner Egypt has released, it has jailed two more," Murphy and Coons noted. "That's not clear and consistent progress—it's one step forward and two steps back. And among the thousands and thousands of political prisoners the government has continued to refuse to release are two U.S. legal permanent residents, Hosam Khalaf and Salah Soltan."
Last week, Murphy and Coons were among the nine Democratic senators and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who urged Blinken to "enforce the conditions set forth by Congress on holding Egypt accountable for progress on human rights" by withholding aid "until Egypt's human rights record improves."
According to the most recent State Department annual country report, "there were no significant changes in the human rights situation in Egypt" between 2022-23.
The report cited violations including:
Credible reports of arbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings; enforced disappearance; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by the government; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; political prisoners or detainees; transnational repression against individuals in another country; arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy; punishment of family members for alleged offenses by a relative.
"Egypt has failed to make consistent progress, yet the State Department has decided to release additional military aid," Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said on Thursday. "The administration should use the leverage Congress provided to defend the fundamental rights of Egyptian political prisoners and dissidents. That's what the Egyptian people, and people everywhere, rightly expect of the United States."
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Gaza Newborn Saved From Womb of Mother Killed in Israeli Airstrike
Malek Yassin was born into the hell that is Gaza during the 293 days of relentless Israeli bombings and blockade that have claimed the lives of more than 16,000 Palestinian children.
Jul 25, 2024
The recent rescue of a newborn from the womb of his mother after she was killed by an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza refugee camp has renewed focus on the horrors endured by Palestinian children and their families during Israel's nine-and-a-half-month onslaught.
Ola Al-Kurd was nine months pregnant and "wanted to hold her child and fill our home with his presence," Adnan Al-Kurd, the slain woman's father, toldReuters.
But last Friday, an Israeli strike on their family home in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed the woman and several of her relatives. Surgeons at Al-Awda Hospital were able to safely deliver her baby, Malek Yassin, who was transferred to Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah and placed in an incubator.
"This baby's life was saved and he is now alive and well," said Al-Aqsa physician Dr. Khalil Al-Dakran. However, the infant's survival is far from guaranteed.
"We are in fact facing very great difficulties in the nursery department," Al-Dakran explained, pointing to an acute lack of medication, fuel to run generators, and other critical supplies.
"What is the fault of this child to start his life under difficult and very bad circumstances, deprived of the most basic necessities of life?" he asked.
Earlier this year, another Gaza newborn rescued from her slain mother's womb at just 30 weeks' gestation died days later at Emirati Maternity Hospital in Rafah.
Israel's 293-day siege, bombardment, and invasion of Gaza—which has killed, wounded, or left missing at least 140,000 Palestinians—has been hell on children and their mothers. The embattled enclave's healthcare infrastructure has been largely obliterated, forcing many mothers to give birth in precarious places, including in tents, streets, and even public bathrooms.
Basic survival items like diapers and formula have also been in extremely short supply in Gaza, which the United Nations Children's Fund has called "the world's most dangerous place to be a child."
As The British Medical Journalreported earlier this year, mothers in Gaza are "burying their newborns every day" as they have nothing to feed them due to what United Nations experts, human rights groups, and parties to the South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have called Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war.
Oxfam said early in the war that children in Gaza were dying from preventable causes including diarrhea, hypothermia, dehydration, and infections.
In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts including blocking food and other aid from entering Gaza. Human rights groups accused Israel of ignoring the order.
The World Court then issued a new order in March, reiterating its directive to prevent genocide, citing "worsening conditions" in Gaza, including "the spread of famine and starvation."
Dozens of Palestinians—almost all of them children—have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of access to healthcare in Gaza over recent months.
Of the more than 39,000 Gazans who have been killed by Israel's bombs, bullets, and blockade, at least 16,000 are children, according to Palestinian and international agencies.
Israeli forces have allegedly deliberately targeted and executed children and their mothers. Israeli Air Force warplanes are dropping shrapnel-packed fragmentation bombs that doctors say are eviscerating children's bodies and causing a "constant flow of amputations."
The humanitarian group Save the Children said late last month that nearly 21,000 Palestinian children are missing in Gaza, with 17,000 orphaned and around 4,000 others believed to be dead and buried beneath the rubble of hundreds of thousands of bombed buildings. An unknown number of children are also believed to be buried in mass graves.
Israeli bombardments have wiped out entire Palestinian families.
Israel's onslaught is also causing what one Gaza mother called the "complete psychological destruction" of child survivors.
Last month, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres added Israel to the so-called "List of Shame" of countries and groups that kill and injure children.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and 13 Democratic colleagues sent a letter to the Israeli and Egyptian ambassadors to the United States urging them to expedite the evacuation of critically ill and injured Palestinian children from Gaza.
"While people disagree about the war in Gaza, everyone should agree that no government should prevent injured children access to potentially lifesaving medical care," the senators wrote. "Rather, governments should be doing everything possible to assist in this situation."
"We must all treat the welfare of children in Gaza as an urgent humanitarian priority and work together to prevent further suffering," the lawmakers added.
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Amid Debates Over Fitness for Office, 63% of Voters Find Biden and Trump Embarrassing
Nearly 9 in 10 respondents to the Pew Research Center survey also said the 2024 election campaign "does not make them feel proud of the country."
Jul 11, 2024
A majority of U.S. voters view both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, as "embarrassing" choices, according to a Pew Research Center survey published Thursday.
Not only do 63% of voters see both men as embarrassing, 37% of Biden supporters and 33% of Trump backers also said the same thing about their own preferred candidates. Nearly 9 in 10 respondents said the 2024 campaign "does not make them feel proud of the country."
The survey found that 44% of respondents support or "lean toward" Trump, while 40% back or lean toward Biden. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who switched from a Democratic to an Independent candidate, came in a distant—but significant—third with 15% of respondents supporting or leaning toward him.
The new poll comes as several of Biden's closest allies toldNBC News that "they now see his chances of winning as zero."
Furthermore, these people—including three who are "directly involved" in Biden's reelection effort—believe his candidacy will harm down-ticket Democratic candidates.
"He needs to drop out," one Biden campaign staffer told the outlet. Referring to the president's disastrous debate performance last month, the official added that "he will never recover from this."
Politicoreported that a Thursday meeting between top Biden advisers and Democratic senators meant to reassure nervous lawmakers "didn't work."
Speaking about Biden's campaign staff, Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.)—who on Wednesday became the first Democratic member of the upper chamber to call on Biden to step aside—said: "I have great respect for their team. It doesn't change my point of view."
Reps. Hillary Scholten (D-Mich.), Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), Ed Case (D-Hawaii), and Greg Stanton (D-Ariz.) on Thursday
urged Biden to stand down, bringing the total number of U.S. lawmakers who have done so to 14.
"President Biden has served his country well, but for the sake of our democracy, he must pass the torch to a new candidate for the 2024 election," Scholten said on social media.
Politicoreported that other lawmakers are preparing to publicly call on Biden to drop out of the race. In a Thursday CNN interview, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a former Biden staffer from his Senate days, said that "hard, cold decisions" must be made about the president's candidacy, stopping just short of urging him to step down.
"I'm very concerned that Biden could lose," said Connolly. "Polling data is not encouraging right now, and I hope the White House takes that into account as well."
Rep. Gerry Connolly, a long-time Biden ally and former staffer, goes right up to the line in calling on Biden to drop out.
Says “hard, cold decisions” need to be made and that Biden needs to listen to outside voices that aren’t just his family’s.
“I’m very concerned that Biden… pic.twitter.com/S3FgSS4r3f
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 11, 2024
Some observers have criticized the U.S. corporate media for its heightened focus on Biden's age and mental fitness at the expense of Trump's recent felony conviction in a New York hush money case, his three pending federal and state criminal trials—two of them related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election—and his apparent lies about a far-right plot to ensure the federal government is stacked with Trump loyalists.
Guardian columnist Margaret Sullivan wrote this week that the "bigger story" is Trump's "appalling unfitness for office, not only because he tried to overturn a legitimate election and is a felon, out on bail and awaiting sentencing, but because of things he has said and done in very recent weeks."
"As just one example, he claimed that he doesn't know anything about Project 2025, the radical right-wing plan hatched by some of his closest allies to begin dismantling our democracy if he wins another term," she continued.
"All of these disturbing elements—the Democrats' dilemma, the media's failures, and the cult-like, unquestioning support of Trump—could add up to one likelihood in November," Sullivan added. "A win for Trump, and a terrible loss for democracy."
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Times editorial board wrote that Biden's debate performance "raised concerns about whether he can win in November, and prompted calls from prominent Democrats, columnists, and others for him to step aside."
"It's up to the Democratic Party to sort this out," the board said. "But it's time to refocus attention on the only candidate in the race who is patently unfit for office—any office—and an imminent threat to democracy: Donald Trump."
The editors continued:
It's unbelievable that the nation is spending so much time on the question of Biden's verbal acuity, when the greatest concern ought to be that his challenger is a self-aggrandizing felon and twice-impeached election-denier. Trump fomented the January 6 insurrection, shows contempt for the rule of law, and shamelessly lies in pursuit of more power. He's an authoritarian who admires murderous despots, wants to jail his political enemies, and has publicly flirted with declaring himself a dictator on his first day back in office.
"Leaders of the Democratic Party have to stop the self-defeating discussion about Biden's fitness and decide whether to replace him or unify behind him," the editors conclude. "And Americans must start hearing more about how the records, positions, and character of Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and any of the prominent Democrats being floated as possible replacements make them all unquestionably superior to Trump."
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