On September 24th, ProPublica revealed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly ignored two different reports from within the Biden administration concluding that Israel was deliberately blocking aid into Gaza. Only days after receiving detailed memos explaining exactly how the Israeli military was blocking humanitarian aid, Blinken told Congress that US does not “currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance.”
Now, the Secretary of State is facing calls for his resignation. “[Blinken] lied. People went hungry, and some died. He needs to resign now,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich) wrote this morning. Tlaib, who is the only Palestinian-American in the US House, is the first member of Congress to call for Blinken to resign.
Blinken has not, as of the time of publication, responded to Tlaib’s comment. He justified his response to the reports on CBS this morning, saying his response was “actually pretty typical.”
The US government is legally required to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration each gave reports to Blinken concluding that Israel was deliberately blocking aid from the starving people of Gaza.
“USAID had sent Blinken a detailed 17-page memo on Israel’s conduct,” ProPublica reported. “The memo described instances of Israeli interference with aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.”
As recently as August, the US approved a $20 billion sale of weapons to Israel, including fighter jets, tank shells, and missiles.
