Biden vows US will cut off weapons to Israel if it goes into Rafah
By Farrah Tomazin
Washington: President Joe Biden has confirmed the US will stop supplying weapons to Israel if it follows through with its planned invasion of Rafah, in a significant policy shift over Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.
As outrage over the war continues, Biden also acknowledged for the first time that 2000-pound (900 kilogram) bombs supplied by the US have been used against civilians in Gaza – where more than 34,500 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.
US President Joe Biden and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Credit: AP
“Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which they go after population centres,” he said in an interview with CNN.
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities, to deal with that problem.”
The comments represent the most direct threat Biden has made to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the war began on October 7, 2023, drawing a red line over the Netanyahu government’s handling of the war.
Rafah is the only major population centre in Gaza to have so far avoided a full-scale Israeli assault. More than one million civilians are sheltering there after being told by the Israeli military to evacuate other parts of the strip. Israel claims that Rafah is also the last major stronghold of the militant Islamist group Hamas, which it has vowed to destroy after the October 7 attacks that killed more than 1200 people.
While the US remains committed to Israel’s defence and will still supply Iron Dome rocket interceptors and other arms, halting artillery shells and other weapons is a significant step for a country that has historically provided enormous amounts of military aid to its top Middle East ally.
Only last month, Biden signed a long-awaited funding bill providing military aid to Israel after weeks of turmoil on Capitol Hill, so his latest comments are likely to enrage Republicans and fuel claims he is not complying with Congress.
Some have already hit out at the president for breaking his once “ironclad” commitment.
“An American president siding with Iran over one of our strongest allies is unforgivable,” said former UN ambassador and one-time Republican presidential hopeful, Nikki Haley.
“Israel didn’t start this war, Hamas did. Withholding ammunition helps our enemies win and puts American lives at risk, including the hostages still held in Gaza.”
However, Biden, a self-described Zionist, has struggled for months to balance his long-standing support for Israel with the growing calls to protect innocent civilians.
This included calls from Democrats and progressives within his own party’s ranks, who have been urging the president to use the supply of weapons as leverage.
The most damning condemnation came from Jewish independent senator Bernie Sanders, who described the carnage in Gaza as “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the modern history of the world” and told Netanyahu to “stop murdering innocent people”.
Biden’s vow to oppose a Rafah offensive comes as outrage over the atrocities in Gaza continues to spill out at university campuses across the US, where pro-Palestinian encampments have sprung up over the last few weeks and thousands of students have been arrested following clashes with police.
The latest took place a few blocks from the White House on Wednesday, when police used pepper spray while breaking up an encampment at George Washington University on April 25.
About 33 demonstrators were arrested after police said they found signs protesters had “gathered improvised weapons” and were “casing” university buildings with the possible intention of occupying them.
These arrests come almost a week after police stormed Columbia University to round up protesters who broke into a historic campus and demanded that the Ivy League institution sever all ties with Israel.
Republicans have seized on the unrest to cast Biden as weak and unable to control the country six months from the presidential election.
“These agitators are really hurting our country,” ex-president and Republican nominee Donald Trump said in New York after enduring a day of salacious testimony from porn star Stormy Daniels in his hush-money trial.
“I think our government ought to find out who they are, where they’re from, and treat them in the same way as they do the J6 hostages” – a reference to the rioters jailed for the deadly attack in support of Trump on the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021.
Columbia sophomore, David Lederer, waves a large Israeli flag outside the student protest encampment on the university’s campus in New York on Monday.Credit: AP
Biden, meanwhile, used a speech on the same day to condemn what he described as a “ferocious surge of antisemitism” in the US and to announce tougher measures to crack down on the problem.
Among them is a proposal to cut federal funding to universities if they fail to crack down hard enough on antisemitism and Islamophobia, in violation of civil rights laws.
The Biden administration is also investigating more than 100 complaints of harassment and discrimination against both Jewish and Muslim students, and has issued every school and college in America with new guidelines outlining forms of hate that would violate the law.
“I understand people have strong beliefs and deep convictions about the world,” Biden said, but “there is no place on any campus in America, any place in America, for antisemitism or hate speech or threats of violence of any kind.”
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