The call from Veterans for Peace (VFP) comes days after the investigative outlet ProPublica published a detailed account of how the U.S. State Department submitted a report to Congress that contradicted the findings of the department’s own experts and those of other agencies.
The Blinken-led State Department’s May report concluded that Israel was not “prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance,” despite internal assessments from State Department experts and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) arguing that Israel had deliberately impeded American aid shipments to Gaza and that weapons transfers to the country should be cut off in line with Section 620I of the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act.
VFP’s letter came days after the U.S. and Israel reached a deal for an additional $8.7 billion in American military support, even as the Israeli military continues to obstruct aid deliveries in Gaza, bombard the enclave’s starving population, and expand the assault on Lebanon.
Susan Schnall, VFP’s president, said Monday that U.S. military aid to Israel amounts to “a theft from millions of Americans who have none of the health insurance every Israeli enjoys; from millions of Americans living in horrific housing while Israel builds thousands of upscale homes on land stolen from Palestinians; from millions of young Americans who can’t afford college because America’s top priorities are weapons and death, not human needs.”
Russia desperately doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO or further their ties to the west. Agreeing to those terms plays direct into Russia’s hands.
There is a wide gap between “Russia stops their invasion and pulls their forces out of Ukraine” and “unconditional surrender by Russia.” No one is calling for the latter, the former is a very reasonable outcome.
I agree that it’s reasonable for Ukraine to have a defensive pact and that Russia’s invasion completely justifies the need for a defensive pact in Europe. I just don’t see how they’ll agree to it from a geopolitical standpoint if their concern, justified or not, is Moscow being within range of US nukes. I think a different defensive pact without US hegenomy could satisfy every European countries security needs, but I don’t know how realistic that is either