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June 4th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
What’s another billion?
Shortly before leaving office Barack Obama signed the biggest military aid deal in the history of the United States. Up until that time Israel had raked in about $3.1 billion in taxpayer money every year, but Obama signed a ten-year deal raising that number up to $3.8 billion. “Prime Minister Netanyahu and I are confident that [this deal] will make a significant contribution to Israel’s security in what remains a dangerous neighborhood,” said the former president in a statement at the time.
Speaking of neighborhoods, let’s turn to downtown Gaza City. This week the AP published an article about the al-Kawlaks, a family with four generations living next door to one another in the Rimal neighborhood.
Azzam al-Kawlak and his wife were about to go to bed on the night of May 16th when their apartment building was hit by Israeli bombs. Their four children were already asleep. They lived on the fourth story, which nearly ended up on the ground outside. Miraculously all six of them were able to escape, but their extended family was not that lucky:
It took a day for the full horror to emerge, as bodies and survivors were pulled from the rubble. The family and neighbors used ropes to clear chunks of concrete, working alongside ill-equipped rescue teams.
By nightfall, the family’s death toll stood at 22. Eight bodies were dug out of Azzam’s building and 14 from the one next door. The dead included 89-year-old family patriarch Amin, his son Fawaz, 62, his grandson Sameh, 28, and his great-grandson, 6-month-old Qusai.
Just a day earlier, Qusai’s parents had celebrated a small milestone, his first tooth. Azzam’s two younger brothers were killed. Three nieces — 5-year-old Rula, 10-year-old Yara and 12-year-old Hala — were found in a tight embrace, their bodies the last to be pulled out, said Azzam’s surviving older brother, Awni.
On the same day that the al-Kawlaks pulled dead family members from the wreckage, Joe Biden approved a $735 million sale of precision-guided weapons to Israel. The State Department said they were legally prohibited from commenting on the sale, but they offered this to a reporter: “We remain deeply concerned about the current violence and are working towards achieving a sustainable calm.”
A group of House Democrats introduced a resolution aimed at blocking the sale, but the move was largely symbolic. The Biden administration sold the weapons to Israel without a hitch and without a debate.
Israel is now reportedly asking the United States for an additional $1 billion in military aid so they can replenish their Iron Dome missile defense system. The news was broken by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham on Fox and Friends, just as the Founding Fathers intended.
“There is going to be a request made by the Israelis to the Pentagon on Thursday for $1 billion in aid to replenish Iron Dome batteries,” Graham told Fox News after meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz in Israel. “It will be a good investment for the American people. I will make sure in the Senate that they get the money.”
Destroying apartment buildings is not cheap. Israel has produced a bill for their attack on Gaza and now they want you to pay for it. This might seem outrageous and brazen, but what reason do they have to doubt it will happen? Israel hadn’t even officially asked for the money before a bipartisan group of House members sent Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin a letter asking the administration to approve the request. “Please know that Congress stands with the Administration in its commitment to ensuring Israel’s security and capability to defend itself from any attack,” it reads.
We will soon find out what kind of resistance develops in response to this move and how the Biden administration will navigate the situation.
More polls show Israel support dropping
Two incredible polls were released recently. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke (UNCP) commissioned the Barna Group to survey evangelical Christians about their views on Israel/Palestine. This undertaking might seem academic to some, as evangelicals have long been associated with enthusiastic and consistent support Israel. There’s been a vast amount of literature and commentary on Christian Zionism, and you can find a whole lot of it in the Mondoweiss archives. While we’ve seen notable opinion shifts on Israel among Democratic voters or young Jews, there can’t possibly be any cracks developing among evangelicals, right?
There is actually. In fact, the poll suggests support is about to drop considerably in the coming years. Only 33.6% of young evangelicals (between the ages of 18 and 29) said they support Israel. 24.3% said they support Palestine. 42.2% said they support neither side in the conflict. Compare this survey to a similar one that was carried out by UNCP professors just a few years ago, in 2018. A staggering 69% of young evangelicals said they supported Israel back then and just 5.6% said they supported the Palestinians. 25.7% didn’t take a side.
“It’s become evident that Israel is developing a public relations problem with younger Americans,” one of the professors told the Times of Israel. “We see it with evangelicals as with American Jews and other groups.”
Now check out this Harvard-Harris poll of registered voters that was taken last month.”Who is more responsible for the violence in the Mideast – Israel or Hamas?,” people were asked. Here are the results:
All: Hamas: 60% Israel: 40%
18-34: Israel: 60% Hamas: 40%
35-49: Israel: 51% Hamas: 49%
50-64: Hamas: 72% Israel: 28%
65+: Hamas: 76% Israel: 24%
Okay, so 2 out of 5 people say Israel is responsible. Not too shabby. But hold on a second. As Kyle Kulinski pointed out on his show, these numbers would no doubt be higher if respondents had simply been asked whether Palestine or Israel was responsible for the violence. Why was there a political distinction made for Hamas, but not one for Israel? Think about the question flipped around: “Who is more responsible for the violence in the Mideast – Palestine or Likud?” What kind of answers would you have gotten then?
The fact that support for Israel still seems to be falling despite such a leading question is a pretty amazing development.
Odds & Ends
🇮🇱 Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) introduced a resolution blaming antisemitic attacks on the BDS movement. “While anti-Semitism is on a rise across the world, the recent violence between Israel and Hamas has led to an increase in attacks against Jewish communities,” he said in a statement. “This violence is further fueled by support here in the United States for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), a global Palestinian-led effort to promote boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. The BDS movement is dangerous and contributes to the rise of anti-Semitism.”
🤖 According to a UN report a drone autonomously attacked people for the first time ever last year in Libya.
🇺🇸 Director of the Center for International Policy’s Arms and Security Program William Hartung has a post at The National Interest on Biden’s massive military budget: “Total spending on the Pentagon and related work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy will top $750 billion, one of the highest levels ever – substantially higher than the peaks of the Korean or Vietnam wars or the Reagan buildup of the 1980s.”
📱 Rep. Rashida Tlaib sent a letter to the parent companies of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, urging them to stop censoring Palestinian voices. “Social media accounts have been some of the only places for Americans to access first-hand accounts of the occupation and violence from Palestinians on the ground,” she wrote. “That is why these reports are particularly troubling—Palestinians often have nowhere else to turn to make their voices heard other than social media.”
📖 Great interview with the author Nathan Thrall at Jacobin: “In the meantime, progressives in the United States need to better understand that they can’t challenge apartheid by fostering partnerships with the Israeli left. If you don’t want to be part of whitewashing apartheid, the first step is to stop blaming apartheid on Netanyahu and Trump, or on the Israeli right and the Republicans. The next step is to recognize that Israel’s system of apartheid is supported by both Biden and the Israeli left. And the step after that is to start reducing your own complicity in apartheid, first and foremost through your tax dollars.”
🇵🇸 Over 35,000 people converged in DC last Saturday for The National March for Palestine. It was the biggest DC protest against U.S. foreign policy in decades. “Overwhelming majority of attendees on Saturday came to show support for Palestinians and to uphold the universal principles of justice and human rights,” reported Nadia B. Ahmad and Faisal R. Khan at the site. “The crowd was very disciplined and it was obvious that they were deeply disappointed and infuriated by the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians sanctioned by the U.S. and other allies. People of all religious and non-religious background were present, and it was impressive to see that there were no symbols, signs and slogans of hate or antisemitism. The main focus was on Palestine and its right to exist in peace and dignity.”
🇺🇸 Someone made numerous violent threats to Palestinian American Community Center in Clifton, New Jersey this week. “Are you Palestinian? … so I know to come blow you up,” said the person during one call.
🇺🇸 A teacher was fired from Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy outside Philadelphia for criticizing Zionism on Twitter. I’m guessing Bari Weiss won’t be devoting a Substack issue to this one.
🇮🇱 This newsletter is mainly devoted to what happens in the U.S. but check out our site for continuing coverage of Israel’s political shakeup.
Stay safe out there,
Michael
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