No Rafah for you!
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Regardless, the current withholding is not without precedent. Highly unlikely that it will pose much of deterrent to Bibi or impair the IDF in any significant way. It is more symbolic than practical.
Is it for domestic purposes in an election year? Of course it is. Will it garner support by shoring up the Democrat base? Possibly.
Is the US abandoning Israel? No.
@Renauda said in No Rafah for you!:
Is it for domestic purposes in an election year? Of course it is.
Yeah. Doesnt matter if the president is Bush/Obama/Trump/Biden, etc their thought process is generally the same.
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https://www.newsweek.com/biden-withholding-aid-israel-sure-looks-impeachable-opinion-1898978
President Trump ordered the suspension of $391 million in vital military assistance urgently needed by Ukraine, a strategic partner, to resist Russian aggression. Because the aid was appropriated by Congress, on a bipartisan basis, and signed into law by the president, its expenditure was required by law. Acting directly and through his subordinates within the U.S. government, the president withheld from Ukraine this military assistance without any legitimate foreign policy, national security, or anticorruption justification. The president did so despite the longstanding bipartisan support of Congress, uniform support across federal departments and agencies for the provision to Ukraine of the military assistance, and his obligations under the Impoundment Control Act.
President Joe Biden salutes as he steps off of Marine One in Chicago, Illinois on May 8. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Just switch Ukraine for Israel and for Russia, and the rest of the paragraph reads exactly the same. Except, of course, that Trump denied he had put an improper hold on the aid, and President Biden .Just how bad is it for a president to withhold congressionally approved military aid to another country? And to do this to a democratic ally facing an existential war? Why, it is nothing short of an ""—or at least that is how then-candidate for President described it in 2020.
Of course, the ICA does provide for some limited circumstances in which the president can try to withhold or delay the delivery of funds, but it includes very specific procedures that the administration must go through in order to notify Congress, who still have the power to approve or disapprove of the President's decision. None of those procedures were implemented here.
What does it say about a president who unilaterally decides that he does not have to follow the law, and specifically the ICA? It would mean that "We have a president who believes there is no limit to his power. We have a president who believes he can do anything and get away with it. We have a president who believes he is above the law." Or at least that is how then-candidate for Biden explained the appearance of impropriety in 2020.
Some may argue that this behavior, while wrong, could not possibly constitute the kind of high crimes and misdemeanors that might lead a president to get impeached. And yet, as the U.S. Government Accountability Office found in January 2020, this kind of unlawful decision does have very real constitutional significance. "Faithful execution of the law does not permit the president to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law. In fact, Congress was concerned about exactly these types of withholdings when it enacted and later amended the ICA... All federal officials and employees take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution and its core tenets, including the congressional power of the purse." In fact, in its Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, Fourth Ed., Ch. 1 (2016), the GAO referred to the congressional power of the purse as "the most important single curb in the Constitution on presidential power."
Although, as @Renauda points out, Reagan did this in the past, and I'm too lazy to look up the Congressional approval of said weaponry, that's not the point.
In the case of Trump, it was deemed to be an impeachable offense.
Does that standard apply?
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@George-K said in No Rafah for you!:
Secondly look at Biden's mental state, 5 years ago.
Yup. ANybody who says that he is 100% is fooling themself.
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I doubt the law authorizing funds for Israel specifies specific weapons systems. He’s only withholding certain offensive weapons, not all aid.
He’s constantly picking and choosing what weapons Ukraine can have. Are you going to suggest that’s impeachable too?
