The Biden Administration has canceled a meeting on Iran between Israeli and American high-ranking officials over a video message by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, exposing a quiet arms embargo against Israel imposed by the White House over IDF military operations in Rafah.
Exposed: US Has Been Withholding Needed Arms as Israel Fights Hamas and Hezbollah
Netanyahu released the video message on Tuesday, saying the White House has been withholding deliveries of arms and ammunition needed to fight Hamas terrorists in Gaza and Hezbollah’s terror army in Lebanon — both of which are Iranian proxies.
Top advisers to President Joe Biden were apparently enraged over the video. “The Americans are fuming. Bibi’s video did a lot of damage,” an Israeli official told Axios.
US envoy Amos Hochstein — who was in the region hoping to find a way to prevent the increasingly likely war between Israel and Hamas — was ordered to personally deliver that message to Netanyahu within hours of its release.
Top Israeli defense officials — including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — were already on their way to Washington DC for the meeting when the White House made the announcement.
Meanwhile, Biden Administration damage control immediately got underway.
When facing the media, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre denied Netanyahu’s contention that Biden officials have been holding up arms deliveries to Israel while the Jewish State is fighting for its life in an existential war it didn’t start.
“We genuinely do not know what he is talking about. We just don’t. A couple of things that I do want to add, and you’re right, there was one particular shipment of munitions that was paused, and you’ve heard us talk about that many times,” Jean Pierre said in response to a question at a briefing Tuesday at the White House. “We continue to have these constructive kinds of discussions with the Israelis for the release of that particular shipment that I just mentioned and I don’t have any updates on that.
“There are no other pauses. None. No other pauses or holds in place … Everything else is moving in due process. That is coming from Secretary [Antony] Blinken.”
The White House has been holding up a large shipment of 2,000 pound bombs for several months because the Biden Administration does not want Israel to use the munition in Gaza.
But here’s what this means: The Biden Administration is effectively blackmailing Israel by withholding the needed munitions as did then-President Barack Obama (under whom President Biden served as then-Vice President Joe Biden) in 2014 when Israel faced a similar situation.
Let’s be clear: The bomb under discussion is also known as a “bunker buster” and is designed to penetrate a concrete shelter — or a concrete terrorist tunnel in Gaza constructed deep beneath the surface. Hamas has been a 500-kilometer (310-mile) labyrinth of terrorist tunnels throughout Gaza, including at least 50 tunnels and hundreds of tunnel shafts the IDF has discovered beneath Rafah alone, including many that crossed under Gaza’s border with Egypt, leading to the Sinai.
It is through these tunnels that Hamas has continued to import advanced weaponry from Iran with Egypt turning a blind eye to the process. Some are beautifully paved, and so wide and well-built they look like underground highways via which Hamas smugglers are able to bring in almost anything on huge trucks that drive right through.
It is also entirely possible that the Hamas leadership — October 7th masterminds Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif and their families — has managed to escape to freedom, possibly taking Israeli hostages along with them as extra insurance.
Israeli hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7th have been held captive in the tunnel network beneath Gaza. After their discovery and a thorough search of the subterranean passages by IDF soldiers, these tunnels must all be destroyed in order to ensure Hamas can never again threaten Israel.
The Biden Administration is protecting Hamas and its terrorist allies by withholding these munitions and insisting Israel refrain from any major operation in Rafah. It’s still not clear why.
The US military used bunker busters during the Gulf war in Iraq, and during the war in Afghanistan. Why is the White House denying Israel the same right?
