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      Could new US sanctions threaten future of West Bank settlements? | Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum

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      Escalating US sanctions on violent settlers, initially taken as a mostly political rebuke to extremists, are now seen by some inside Israel as a potential threat to the financial viability of all Israeli settlements and companies in the occupied West Bank.The Biden administration’s new controls on a handful of men and organisations linked to attacks on Palestinian civilians, first announced in February then expanded twice in March and April, have generally been treated in Israel and beyond more as a humiliating public censure of a close ally than as a major political shift.But experts from across Israel’s political spectrum say this underestimates the ferocity with which the US implements its financial controls and the scope of the new sanctions framework.They told the Observer that the relatively small list of sanctions targets in West Bank settlements could still prompt financial institutions to draw back from offering services to any people or companies based there, because of fears they could accidentally facilitate illegal transactions.And while sanctions so far have focused only on violent individuals and small groups, a new executive order gives the US a very broad remit to target any person or entity “responsible for or complicit in … threaten[ing] the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank”.That explicitly includes politicians who support or enable them, stating actions subject to sanctions include “directing, enacting, implementing, enforcing or failing to enforce policies”, wording that could be used to target people at the heart of Israel’s government.“Israel must do more to stop violence against civilians in the West Bank and hold accountable those responsible,” US secretary of state Antony Blinken said in a statement that linked the sanctions to supporting the creation of a Palestinian state.“The United States will continue to take actions to advance [its] foreign policy objectives … including the viability of a two-state solution.”Many banks are already re-assessing their dealings with the West Bank after a warning from FinCEN, the US government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, said Shuki Friedman, a law scholar, global sanctions consultant and former head of Israel’s Iran sanctions programme.“Even though the [US executive] order is sanctioning only few individuals, in practice it’s actually casting a shadow on all activities that come through the West Bank,” he said.“It delegitimises them in a way that if you’re a financial institution, insurance company, institutional investor, hedge fund, anything to do with these activities, you will be cautious about it. You take a step back. This is the real meaning of this order.”Michael Sfard, one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers, initially saw the order as a “political message” from the Biden administration as it tried to respond to voter pressure over its support for Israel as the war in Gaza raged. Nearly three months on, he believes the sanctions are potentially the most consequential shift in US policy for many years, one that could even halt the creeping annexation of the West Bank.“The sanction regime could redraw the Green Line,” Sfard said, referring to Israel’s internationally recognised boundaries from the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.The Yesha Council, which lobbies the government on behalf of settlers, effectively acknowledged the sanctions reflected a policy shift which could threaten their future, even as it dismissed the bans as “absurd” and said they had “zero impact”.“This isn’t truly about a few individuals,” a spokeswoman said. “This is about foreign governments, led by the Biden administration, sanctioning and potentially sanctioning any Israeli who doesn’t share their vision of a so-called ‘two-state solution’.”The settlement movement began soon after the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem were seized in the six-day war in 1967. Its goal is to take areas officially under temporary occupation, which were supposed to form the heart of an independent Palestine, and build communities and roads that would weave them irrevocably into the fabric of Israel.View image in fullscreenAlthough illegal under international law, there are now 500,000 Israelis living in West Bank settlements, about 5% of the population.“The Green Line doesn’t exist in the Israeli political system, in Israeli economic life, in transportation and infrastructure. You can live and do business in the settlements without any disruption,” Sfard said.But if the US expands the list of sanctions targets to include businesses linked to violent settlers it could become impossible for Israeli banks to keep serving businesses and communities in the West Bank.In the wake of the first wave of sanctions, Israeli institutions came under domestic pressure to keep serving the targets. The public that didn’t understand that if the banks wanted to operate in a global system that runs on dollars, they had no choice about complying with American orders.Other countries like Russia and Iran have partially shifted their trade to other allies and rebuilt finance systems after coming under US sanctions, but Israel has no real alternatives.“These sanctions could potentially force Israelis to make a choice, between supporting settler extremists and keeping a connection to the international financial system,” Sfard said. “If they have to chose between a weekend in Rome or shopping in Oxford Street and supporting settlers, I know what many will chose.”Key to the potential impact of the new US regime are “secondary sanctions”, which are imposed not for doing things the US considers criminal – in the case of the initial sanctions list, attacking Palestinian civilians – but for helping people and companies on that list evade the bans.Anyone who makes a transaction for someone under sanctions, on purpose or unintentionally, could join them on the US blacklist.“Very quickly once you have a scattered number of designated individuals and entities the whole West Bank settlement world becomes a minefield,” said Sfard. “The banking system doesn’t want to risk being charged with providing any kind of support to designated individuals. So every attempt to do business means reviewing whether you might stumble on a risk of secondary sanctions.”Not everyone in Israel thinks the sanctions are a game changer. Human rights activist Yehuda Shaul welcomed the executive order but said if the US wants to halt violence it needs to target funding more directly.“One shouldn’t only go after violent individuals,” he said, pointing out that young men attacking Palestinians are not managing the broader political project. “At 25 I didn’t have the financial capacity to build a house on hilltop with road and utilities and 500 cows. Someone is funding them.”Others including Yehuda Shaffer, former deputy state attorney and head of Israel’s financial intelligence unit, believe Israeli banks can stick to very targeted enforcement that will have few wider repercussions.He described the sanctions as “lip service” from a US administration under pressure. “It looks to me like an attempt to give a sense of even-handed policy, even though to be truthful, the Americans are very much supporting Israel in this war.”In putting Israel in company with rogue states like North Korea, and some of America’s most bitter international enemies, the sanctions are humiliating.“It is embarrassing and somewhat disappointing,” said Shaffer. “The sanctions suggest somehow that the Israeli rule of law is not up to American expectations.”But he thinks the impact will be limited with banks strictly enforcing controls on the individuals and organisations named by the US, while continuing to serve the West Bank more broadly.Even as he sees cause for hope in tempering violence, Sfard, says it is early days for the programme. “Even if the US means business on sanctions now, it might not stay the course,” he said.“When trying to introduce new measures to pressure Israel on this issue, it is better not to introduce them than to do it and fail to have any impact, as that gives a sense of power to settlers.” More

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      Morning After the Revolution review: a bad faith attack on ‘woke’

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      Writing on Substack in 2021, Nellie Bowles described some of the less attractive qualities that motivated her work as a reporter: “I love the warm embrace of the social media scrum. One easy path toward the top of the list … is communal outrage. Toss something (someone) into that maw, and it’s like fireworks. I have mastered that game. For a couple of years, that desire for attention … propelled me more than almost anything else. I began to see myself less as a mirror and more as a weapon.”Bowles is married to Bari Weiss, a former editor on the opinion section of the New York Times whose furious resignation letter earned her encomiums from Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump Jr.But Bowles wrote that her decision to convert to the faith of her Jewish wife had actually softened her approach to journalism: “I want to cultivate my empathy not my cruelty. I am trying to go back to being closer to the mirror than the knife.”However, her new book, Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History, is dazzling proof she is completely incapable of changing her approach to her profession.Bowles is a former tech reporter for outlets including the Guardian and the New York Times. For many reporters, the decision to write a book comes from wanting to dig deeper into a particular subject, or a desire for freedom from the restrictions of one’s former employer. For Bowles, longform turns out to be the chance to jettison the standards of accuracy of her previous employers in favor of the wildest possible generalizations.Here are a few fine examples: “The best feminists of my generation were born with dicks.” This is the author’s jaunty description of trans women, who, she informs us, are “the best, boldest” and “fiercest feminists”, who unfortunately – according to her – have concluded “that to be a woman is, in general, disgusting”.On the ninth page of Bowles’s introduction, meanwhile, readers realize how much we must have underestimated the universal impact of the movement to Defund the Police. Did you know, for example, that “if you want to be part of the movement for universal healthcare … you cannot report critically on #DefundThePolice”?Bowles identifies a similar problem with marriage equality: “If you want to be part of a movement that supports gay marriage … then you can’t question whatever disinformation is spread that week.”The wilder the idea, the more likely Bowles is to include it, almost always in a way that can never be checked. To prove the vile effect of wokeness on the entire news business, she informs us that colleagues “at major news organizations” have “told me roads and birds are racist. Voting is racist. Exercise is super-racist. Worrying about plastic in the water is transphobic.” And a “cohort” took it “as gospel when a nice white lady said that being on time and objectivity were white values, and this was a progressive belief”.Writing about a tent city in Echo Park, Los Angeles, Bowles explains why nobody living there was interested in a free hotel room: “Residents could not do drugs in the rooms. And the rooms were, of course, indoors. People high on meth and fentanyl prefer being outdoors, with no rules, with their friends.”Predictably, the book reaches a whole new level of viciousness when it reveals Bowles’ attitude toward trans people.Intelligent people know three essential facts about the debate over whether children under 18 should have access to hormones or surgery to make their bodies conform to the gender in which they think they belong.First, a large majority of trans people of all ages never take hormones or get surgery. Second, nearly all of those who do choose to use medicine to alter their bodies report a dramatic improvement in personal happiness. Third, a very small number of those who have undergone surgery or taken hormones to block puberty do change their minds and opt for de-transition.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNaturally, Bowles mentions none of those facts. According to her narrative, “the transition from Black Lives Matter to Trans Lives Matter was seamless … I don’t think this was planned or orchestrated. The movement simply pivoted.”No mention, of course, of polls conducted by Christian nationalists and their allies which determined that the best new fundraising tool would be an all-out attack on trans people, including the denial of their very existence, as well as the introduction of hundreds of bills in state legislatures across the country to make this tiny minority as miserable as possible.Instead, Bowles wants us to believe the debate is dominated by websites you might not have heard of, like Fatherly, which asserts: “All kids, regardless of their gender identity, start to understand their own gender typically by the age of 18 to 24 months.” One parent who appeared on PBS in 2023 is equally important in Bowles’s book, because she said her child started to let her parents know “she was transgender really before she could even speak”.Needless to say, Bowles is horrified that as America became more aware of the existence of trans people, the number of clinics available to treat them grew to 60 by 2023. Then she makes another remarkable claim: “If a parent resists” medical changes requested by a child, “they can and do lose custody of their child.”Is that true? I have no idea. If Bowles had written that sentence in the Times or the Guardian, her editor would most certainly have requested some sort of proof. Fortunately for her – but unfortunately for us – her publisher, a new Penguin Random House imprint, Thesis, does not appear to impose any outdated fact-checking requirements. The only visible standard here is, if it’s shocking, we’ll print it.
      Morning After the Revolution is published in the US by Thesis More

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      Say More review: Jen Psaki on Biden, Trump and how to make your point

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      Jen Psaki left the Biden White House after 16 months as press secretary. Saturday Night Live never savaged her, though Kate McKinnon played her. By that and other measures, Psaki compares favorably to Sean Spicer and Sarah Sanders, her predecessors from the years of Trump. A veteran of the Obama West Wing, before that a competitive collegiate swimmer, Psaki had the president’s ear and spoke with knowing authority.Her press briefings were not cauldrons of rancor. Her tussles with Peter Doocey, the Fox News White House correspondent, never neared the boiling point. They played nice.Unlike Karine Jean-Pierre, her successor, Psaki didn’t have to share the White House podium with John Kirby, spokesperson for the national security council and a retired rear admiral. Psaki was a force in her own right.Now a host at MSNBC, Psaki is out with her first book. It mixes political vignettes with tips on navigating life’s competing demands, including how to dodge – and throw – sharp elbows. As a political memoir, it does its share of score-settling. But, true to its subtitle, Lessons from Work, the White House, and the World, Psaki’s book is not a tell-all, terribly newsy or an audition for a slot in a second Biden administration, if there is one.To be expected, Psaki is critical of Donald Trump and his minions, but injects subtlety too. She wields a scalpel, lacerating Spicer and his former boss. She frames criticisms as career advice, not frontal assault.“Shouldn’t [Spicer] have rejected the job offer, if he were truly credible?” she asks of the Republican official who had first go at speaking for Trump, perhaps the most thankless task yet invented in politics.Great question. We all know the answer. As the anti-Trump operative Rick Wilson put it, everything Trump touches dies. Only Ivanka is safe and even then … who knows.“While Sean may not have been acting entirely on his own behalf when he was giving his press briefings,” Psaki writes, “he was the one who suffered as a result.”True. If Melissa McCarthy plays you in an SNL cold open, as she did Spicer, lampooning your loud parroting of your boss’s absurd lies … you’re screwed.Then again, Spicer was kind of lucky. Banished from the Trumpian kingdom early on, he never suffered a January 6-related indictment. Eventually, he expressed regret for beclowning himself over the inauguration in 2017.Back on Psaki’s own side of the aisle, Say More is no hagiography of Joe Biden. Psaki is aware of the president’s capacity for empathy but also mindful of his tendency to bring the story back to his own losses, most recently including that of Beau Biden, his late son who served in Iraq.In summer 2021, amid the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a suicide bomb at Kabul airport left 13 US soldiers and 170 Afghans dead. Three days later, American bodies arrived at Dover air force base in Delaware, Biden’s home state. The president and the first lady, Jill Biden, attended. Things did not work out as planned.Psaki conveys how Biden was stunned into silence when told that family members of dead Americans were complaining he had spent too much time talking about Beau, alleging he was insufficiently focused on the deaths of their own children.“I paused for the president to respond,” Psaki writes. “The silence that followed was a bit too long. I worried for a moment that our connection had been lost.”Biden finally responded, but did so “in a softer voice than usual”.“I thought I was helping them. Hearing about how other people went through loss always helps me,” Biden said.Again he paused: “Thanks for telling me. Anything else?”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPsaki also tweaks Chuck Schumer, now Senate majority leader, and John Kerry, Barack Obama’s second secretary of state and until March a member of Biden’s administration as his climate envoy.Once upon a time, the Affordable Care Act was unpopular, viewed by many as another welfare scheme. Against the backdrop of the Great Recession, a stock market crash and the mortgage crisis, Obamacare cost the Democrats both chambers of Congress.“There were those … who suggested that we shouldn’t do anything other than the economy,” Obama later acknowledged to Jonathan Cohn of the Huffington Post.One of those “outsiders” was Schumer. The New Yorker grasped the political consequences of going all in on healthcare amid a meltdown in jobs and housing. Political prescience, however, isn’t always welcomed, let alone rewarded. Recalling how the White House rejected Schumer’s suggestion that Obama’s final State of the Union address contain a pitch for student loan relief, Psaki seems to delight in the outcome.“I was telling [Obama] he needed to decide whether he wanted this to be his State of the Union speech, or Senator Schumer’s,” she recalls. “I delivered my thoughts calmly. My argument tapped into my knowledge of how the media would cover the speech. The president eventually agreed. Sorry, Senator Schumer.”Psaki also recalls a gaffe made by Kerry in 2014. Responding to a question, he intimated that if conflict broke out between Japan and China, the US would use military force – a stance at odds with the stated American position.“That was a huge mistake,’” chided David Wade, a longtime Kerry aide. Kerry didn’t yell back. Instead, he gave Psaki and Wade the green light to contact the White House and distance itself from his comments. In that moment, Psaki learned that being effective in her job meant delivering quick feedback, at times.“Advising someone is not the same as appeasing them,” she writes.The Biden administration has been relatively leak-free. Nothing approaching Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury or Team of Vipers by Cliff Sims, an early memoir by a Trump administration official, has appeared. Whether this matters come election day remains, of course, to be seen.
      Say More is published in the US by Simon & Schuster More

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      Rudy Giuliani suspended by New York radio station over 2020 election lies

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      The former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s troubles deepened on Friday when he was suspended by WABC radio, for trying to use his show to discuss the lie that the 2020 presidential election was lost by Donald Trump because of electoral fraud.John Catsimatidis, a New York billionaire, Republican donor and owner of WABC, told the New York Times: “We’re not going to talk about fallacies of the November 2020 election. We warned him once. We warned him twice. And I get a text from him last night, and I get a text from him this morning that he refuses not to talk about it.“So he left me no option. I suspended him.”Giuliani later said he had been fired.A spokesperson for Giuliani issued a lengthy statement, in which the former mayor said: “I’m learning from a leak to the New York Times that I’m being fired by John Catsimatidis and WABC because I refused to comply with their overly broad directive stating, word-for-word, that I’m ‘prohibited from engaging in conversations relating to the 2020 presidential election’.”Claiming “a clear violation of free speech”, Giuliani said he would address the situation further on social media on Friday night.But he went on to say the move by WABC came “at a very suspicious time, just months before the 2024 election, and just as John and WABC continue to be pressured by Dominion Voting Systems and the Biden regime’s lawyers”.Dominion Voting Systems, a manufacturer of elections machines, reached a $787.5m settlement with Fox News over its broadcast of election fraud lies. It also sued Giuliani and Sidney Powell, another lawyer who worked on Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Now 79, Giuliani was mayor of New York from 1993 to 2001, emerging as a national figure after leading the city through the 9/11 terror attacks. He ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.Long close to Trump, who reportedly helped him through a personal crisis after the failed presidential run, Giuliani emerged as a steadfast supporter when Trump ran for the Republican nomination in 2016 and then won the White House.Giuliani did not win the prize of being made secretary of state, but he worked on Trump’s behalf in matters including the attempt to extract political dirt from Ukraine, which prompted Trump’s first impeachment.In 2020, Giuliani worked to try to overturn Joe Biden’s defeat of Trump at the polls, only to suffer a series of courtroom defeats and mounting public embarrassments.Giuliani denies wrongdoing, but his efforts on Trump’s behalf have produced legal disbarment proceedings; criminal charges in two swing states, Georgia and Arizona; and defeat in a defamation suit that left him owing $148m to two Georgia poll workers he claimed were involved in electoral fraud.Giuliani filed for bankruptcy in New York last December. Filings showed debts of up to $500m.Earlier this week, a legal filing on Giuliani’s behalf said no accountants “seem[ed] interested” in working with him to meet requirements in the bankruptcy case.His spokesperson, Ted Goodman, said then: “While it is true that the permanent Washington political class is leveraging all of its power and influence to bully and scare people from defending Americans who are willing to stand up and push back against the accepted narrative, Mayor Giuliani will be appropriately represented when it comes to his accounting and finances.”The filing on Tuesday said the former mayor, who made millions in consulting work after leaving office in 2001, “currently received social security benefits and broadcasts a radio show and podcast”.“These are his sole sources of income,” it said.Catsimatidis told the Times that at the close of his WABC show on Thursday, Giuliani tried to speak about the 2020 election but was cut off by station employees.“Look, I like the guy as a person, but you can’t do that,” Catsimatidis told the paper. “You can’t cross the line. My view is that nobody really knows [about the 2020 result] but we had made a company policy. It’s over, life goes on.”In his statement, Giuliani accused Catsimatidis of “telling reporters I was informed ahead of time of these restrictions, which is demonstrably untrue.“How can you possibly believe that when I’ve been regularly commenting on the 2020 election for three and a half years, and I’ve talked about the case in Georgia incessantly ever since the verdict in December. Other WABC hosts and newscasters questioned me on these topics.“Obviously I was never informed on such a policy, and even if there was one, it was violated so often that it couldn’t be taken seriously.” More

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      Court upholds Steve Bannon’s conviction for defying Jan 6 committee subpoena – as it happened

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      A federal appellate court ruled unanimously today to uphold Steve Bannon’s conviction of contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the House special committee on the January 6 capitol attack. It’s a blow for the far-right media executive who helped usher Donald Trump into office in 2016 and was a key architect of the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Bannon was originally sentenced to four months in prison; this ruling makes his incarceration a real possibility, although he could appeal the decision again.Here’s what else happened today:
      Trump’s 2024 campaign will be “lean,” according to a Washington Post report, which also revealed numerous swing state officials’ worries that they lack critical campaign resources ahead of the 2024 election.
      Paul Manafort offered his consulting services to a Chinese media venture after Trump pardoned him in 2020 – and is likely to join the Trump 2024 campaign soon.
      Unsealed court documents reveal two political consultants pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired to commit money laundering with Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas, who the Department of Justice has charged with receiving bribes from foreign entities.
      Rudy Giuliani can’t stop fanning the flames of election conspiracy theories – a habit that got his show on the conservative talk radio station WABC, in New York, cancelled.
      Rudy Giuliani’s show on the conservative talk radio station WABC in New York was cancelled after Giuliani continued to platform falsehoods about the 2020 election – a violation of the radio station’s policy.According to the New York Times, which first reported the cancellation, Giuliani had been warned repeatedly to stop discussing election lies on air.“We’re not going to talk about fallacies of the November 2020 election,” John Catsimatidis, who owns the station, told the New York Times. “We warned him twice.”In a 9 May letter to Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren this week urged the Treasury to step up measures recommended by the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity (TACRE).“I am concerned that the recommendations made by members of the TACRE remain in limbo at Treasury,” Warren wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Reuters. Warren requested the department provide a timeline by May 23 for implementing the remaining proposals.The Disney heiress and activist Abigail Disney blasted South Dakota governor Kristi Noem and the Republican Party in an email to voters, per an exclusive Guardian report from Martin Pengelly:Evoking the classic Disney tearjerker Old Yeller, in which a family is forced to put down their beloved dog, the US film-maker and campaigner Abigail Disney exhorted voters to oppose the Republican party of Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor whose story of killing Cricket, a 14-month-old dog, shocked the world and seemingly dynamited her hopes of being Donald Trump’s running mate.“My great-uncle Walt Disney knew the magic place animals have in the hearts of families everywhere,” Disney wrote in an email released by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and obtained exclusively by the Guardian.“When he released Old Yeller, the heart wrenching story stayed with people because no one takes the killing of a family pet lightly.“At least that’s what I thought until I read about potential Trump VP Kristi Noem shooting her family’s puppy – a story that has shocked so many of us.”U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack announced today plans to unleash funding to mitigate the spread of bird flu in cattle – a measure intended to slow the spread of the virus.The spread of the virus to dairy cows poses an immediate risk to the workers in close contact with livestock and has raised concerns about the virus mutating and spreading to humans.Officials have promised nearly $200m for tracking and testing, and to compensate farmers who have taken a loss due to the spread of the virus.Two months after the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Colorado lacked the authority to ban Donald Trump from the ballot there, a separate fight over ballot access is playing out in Ohio, over Joe Biden’s eligibility to appear on the ballot this fall.The partisan fight that has been brewing for months escalated this week when the GOP-controlled state legislature blew past a Thursday deadline to pass legislation ensuring the president will have ballot access in November.Because the Democratic National Convention falls after the state’s certification deadline for presidential candidates, the state legislature was tasked with passing a law to push that deadline ahead.But Republicans in the state say they will grant Biden ballot access only if they garner the votes to also pass legislation banning foreign nationals from donating to state referendum campaigns – a push that stems from their anger over donations from a Swiss billionaire to Democratic-backed ballot measures in the state last year.Unsealed court documents reveal two political consultants pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired to commit money laundering with Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas.Cuellar’s former campaign manager, Colin Strother, and consultant Florencio “Lencho” Rendon, are now cooperating with the Department of Justice in its case against the Texas Democrat.Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, were indicted last week for allegedly accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from a Mexico City bank and an oil and gas company owned by the government of Azerbaijan.Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaigns are a study in contrasts.While Biden spends his Friday fundraising on the west coast, making campaign stops in California and Washington, Trump sits through another day of his New York trial over Trump’s alleged falsification of business records in connection with hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.And while the Biden campaign has launched a massive fundraising campaign, Trump’s operation appears strained amid his legal battles. According to a report today in the Washington Post, swing state GOP operatives are worried they lack critical campaign infrastructure ahead of the 2024 general election (the Trump campaign insists that’s not the case).Donald Trump’s fixer and former lawyer Michael Cohen is expected to appear in court Monday – his testimony in the hush money case will be key, given Cohen’s role in facilitating the $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. You can follow updates on the case on the Guardian’s live trial blog here:In the unanimous decision by a federal appellate court to uphold Steve Bannon’s conviction of contempt, circuit court judge Brad Garcia wrote that Bannon “deliberately refused to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena in that he knew what the subpoena required and intentionally did not respond; his nonresponse, in other words, was no accident.”Bannon has maintained that he refused to comply with the congressional subpoena from the special House committee investigating the January 6 attacks on the advice of his former lawyer, Robert Costello – a justification the appellate court has rejected.Bannon could continue to appeal the case, including by turning to the U.S. Supreme Court.Far-right Trump ally Steve Bannon has, since Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, maintained the lie that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. Even as other figures in the conservative movement shy away from the claim, Bannon has made the falsehood a rallying cry. In March, the Guardian’s David Smith wrote about Bannon’s incendiary role in right-wing politics: Wearing an olive green jacket over a black shirt, Steve Bannon blew the doors off a subject that most other speakers had tiptoed around. “Media, I want you to suck on this, I want the White House to suck on this: you lost in 2020!” he roared. “Donald Trump is the legitimate president of the United States!”A thrill of transgression swept through the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Maryland. “Trump won!” Bannon barked, pointing a finger. “Trump won!” he repeated, shaking a fist. “Trump won!” he proclaimed again. His audience, as if hypnotised, chanted the brazen lie in unison.It was a blunt reminder that Bannon, an architect of Trumpism variously compared to Thomas Cromwell, Rasputin and Joseph Goebbels, remains a potent force in American politics as the 2024 US presidential election looms into view and the re-election of Trump looks a clear possibility.After Steve Bannon’s criminal conviction for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the special House committee investigating the January 6 capitol attack was upheld by a federal appeals court, the far-right political operative could soon be forced to begin a 4-month prison sentence initially ordered in 2022.Leaked audio showed that ahead of the 2020 general presidential election, Bannon was familiar with Trump’s plans to declare an early victory. Since 2020, he has continued to push falsehoods about the 2020 election and host prominent conspiracy theorists on his influential War Room podcast.When the House committee investigating the January 6 attacks issued a subpoena for Bannon, he refused to comply. The court’s decision to uphold his conviction delivers a blow to the Trump ally.A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has reportedly upheld Steve Bannon’s conviction on contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena issued by the United States House select committee on the January 6 capitol attack.Paul Manafort returned to international consulting after Donald Trump pardoned him in 2020, The Washington Post reports.Manafort, in the years since obtaining clemency, worked on a Chinese streaming media venture. Now, the Post reports, Manafort is poised to join Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Manafort denied that his work on the Chinese media project would form a conflict of interest in the U.S.-China relationship.Before chairing Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Manafort’s former firm, called Black, Manafort, and Stone notoriously lobbied U.S. congress on behalf of foreign governments – including on behalf of human rights-abusing dictatorships, among them the regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.Former president Donald Trump has adopted the legal strategy of stalling and stalling to ensure his most sensitive trials will take place after the election. That strategy is working, reports Sam Levine:As had been expected for months, Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday scrapped a 20 May trial date that had been set in south Florida over the former president’s handling of classified documents. The delay was almost entirely the doing of Cannon, a Trump appointee, who allowed far-fetched legal arguments into the case and let preliminary legal matters pile up on her docket to the point where a May trial was not a possibility.On Thursday, the Georgia court of appeals announced it would hear a request from Trump to consider whether Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, should be removed from the election interference case against him because of a relationship with another prosecutor. The decision means both that Trump will continue to undermine Willis’s credibility and draw out the case. “There will be no trial until 2025,” tweeted Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University who has been closely following the case.The third pending case against Trump, a federal election interference case in Washington, also appears unlikely to go to trial before the election. The US supreme court heard oral arguments on whether Trump has immunity from prosecution last month and seemed unlikely to resolve it quickly enough to allow the case to move forward ahead of the election.Swing state GOP officials say they have not received key campaign resources ahead of the 2024 general presidential election, The Washington Post reports. This comes amid a funding crunch for Donald Trump’s campaign, which is looking lean as the former president faces mounting legal costs.Top campaign officials rejected the idea that their operation was suffering.But Republican Party officials in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan said they worried that their funding and operations would be insufficient – and that the campaign had not built out enough of an infrastructure in those key states.“There is no sign of life,” Kim Owens, an Arizona Republican Party operative, told the Post.Good morning! After easily surviving an attempt to oust him by the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, House speaker Mike Johnson appears to be basking in it. In an interview with Politico, Johnson – the conservative Republican who developed his career in the legal world of the Christian right and joined his colleagues in contesting the results of the 2020 election – waxed poetic about bipartisanship and consensus.He had high praise for House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, and proclaimed – of bipartisanship – that the American political system “doesn’t work unless you understand the principles that undergird it.”His praise came after the House easily quashed far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resolution to oust Johnson on Wednesday, as members of both parties came together in a rare moment of bipartisanship to keep the chamber open for business.The vote on the motion to table Greene’s resolution was 359 to 43, as 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats supported killing the proposal.Having said this, Johnson was just as quick to defend his role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Johnson, who led the effort to garner congressional Republican support for a Texas lawsuit attempting to overturn the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, said he had no regrets over the legal maneuver.Here’s what’s going on today:
      Amid the former president’s mounting legal costs, Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign is taking a “lean” approach, Washington Post reports.
      Trump returns to court today, rounding out a week marked by detailed testimony from adult film star Stormy Daniels about her alleged affair with Trump.
      Joe Biden will participate in campaign events on the west coast this afternoon. More

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      Abigail Disney evokes Old Yeller in plea to reject Republicans after Kristi Noem kills dog

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      Evoking the classic Disney tearjerker Old Yeller, in which a family is forced to put down their beloved dog, the US film-maker and campaigner Abigail Disney exhorted voters to oppose the Republican party of Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor whose story of killing Cricket, a 14-month-old dog, shocked the world and seemingly dynamited her hopes of being Donald Trump’s running mate.“My great-uncle Walt Disney knew the magic place animals have in the hearts of families everywhere,” Disney wrote in an email released by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and obtained exclusively by the Guardian.“When he released Old Yeller, the heart wrenching story stayed with people because no one takes the killing of a family pet lightly.“At least that’s what I thought until I read about potential Trump VP Kristi Noem shooting her family’s puppy – a story that has shocked so many of us.”Noem describes the day she killed Cricket (and an unnamed goat) in No Going Back, a campaign memoir published this week but first reported late last month by the Guardian.Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, met her fate in a gravel pit because Noem deemed her “untrainable” after she disrupted a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbour’s chickens. The goat, which had not been castrated, was deemed too aggressive and smelly and a danger to Noem’s children. By the governor’s own admission, it took two blasts with a shotgun to finish the goat off.Noem has repeatedly defended her story as indicative of her willingness to do unpleasant but necessary things in life as well as politics. Nonetheless, she has reportedly slipped way down Donald Trump’s list of possible vice-presidential picks, should the presumptive Republican nominee avoid prison on any of 88 criminal charges and should he beat Biden in November.Two weeks after the Guardian report, shock and revulsion over Noem’s story continues to ring throughout the US. This week, amid a string of uncomfortable interviews even on usually friendly rightwing networks, also questioning an untrue claim to have met the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, the governor cut short a promotional tour for her book.In her email in support of the PCCC, Disney said: “Walt Disney also understood story telling. Together, we must make sure all voters see how this sad Kristi Noem episode is part of the larger story of the 2024 election: America could vote into the White House extremists that glorify cruelty and lack basic empathy and compassion.”View image in fullscreenAsking readers to post pictures of beloved pets and the hashtag #UnleashTheVote, Disney also promoted a petition against “Trump and extreme Republicans who lack the character to lead our nation”.Old Yeller, which the Guardian called “one of the best and most poignant boy-and-his dog movies”, was released in 1957. It tells the story of a family in Texas in 1869 that adopts a large yellow dog.Disney said: “In Old Yeller, the family comes to see the lovable stray dog as an indispensable member of the family. The film’s climactic moment is a heartbreaking one, when the father has no choice but to shoot Old Yeller when the dog contracts rabies because of the inevitable threat to their lives – and, out of compassion, to end the suffering the dog would have to endure.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Noem shot her family’s 14-month-old puppy after a hunting trip, in her own account, because she was too hard to teach. ‘I hated that dog,’ she wrote, framing the killing of a puppy as an example of strength.“Kristi Noem is not strong. Like Trump, she is cruel and selfish.”Listing positions taken by Trump and supporters like Noem, Disney said: “If Kristi Noem was actually strong, she would stand up to the January 6 insurrectionists instead of celebrating them. Or she would make billionaires pay their fair share of taxes instead of lining up for their campaign donations.“If she had real courage, she might even criticise the supreme court for abolishing abortion rights or making it easier to flood our streets and schools with guns.“True strength is not demonstrated through harshness, brutality, or callous indifference, but through steadfast kindness and compassion. Our pets teach most of us this lesson every day through their loyalty and unconditional love.“Let’s make sure Americans demand leaders who do the same when it comes time to vote.” More

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      Joe Biden is desperate for this war to end – but neither Netanyahu nor Hamas is in any hurry | Jonathan Freedland

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      Beware cornering a US president anxious about re-election. Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly ignored that advice in his dealings with Joe Biden, and this week his country learned the price.It came in the revelation that Biden had withheld the supply of about 3,500 bombs, refusing to let US munitions play a part in an Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge. The president was at pains to say he was not giving up his “ironclad” commitment to Israel. Instead, it was just the specific, long-threatened Rafah operation that he would not back with weapons. “We’re not walking away from Israel’s security,” Biden told CNN. “We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas.”To understand why this is such a big deal, remind yourself of the people and the countries involved. The US is Israel’s most crucial ally. Israel’s former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin used to say that his country’s number one strategic asset was not this or that weapon – not even its unconfirmed, and undenied, nuclear arsenal – but its relationship with Washington. For many decades, the US has served as Israel’s chief arms supplier and diplomatic protector. And yet in the space of less than six weeks, Washington has withheld its veto at the UN security council, allowing a resolution to pass in late March that Israel wanted blocked, and now it has closed the doors to at least part of its armoury.What’s more, these actions were taken by a man who is, by some distance, the most personally devoted supporter of Israel ever to sit in the Oval Office. Biden is a Democrat from the era when the notion of a restored Jewish homeland in the Middle East – promising an end to two millennia of exile and persecution – would turn US liberals misty-eyed. It takes little prompting for Biden to boast that he has met every Israeli leader since Golda Meir. Unlike past presidents, his affinity for Israel is not solely the product of electoral calculation: as his Jewish supporters put it, it’s in his kishkes. It’s in his guts.Meanwhile, Netanyahu came to prominence in the 1980s as an Israeli diplomat who spoke fluent American. He offered himself then and since as an expert on the US political landscape, a crucial skill for a would-be Israeli leader. For decades, his message to the Israeli electorate has been that only he – who stands in “another league” above his domestic rivals – can be trusted with the all-important US-Israel relationship.But look at the state of it now. Biden has become the first US president in more than four decades to deny Israel military aid in this way. (Ronald Reagan conveyed US fury after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 by delaying a consignment of fighter planes.) And why has he done it? Because, under Netanyahu, a growing section of the US public is souring on Israel as never before.It’s true that a bedrock level of support for the country exists that may surprise those seeing daily footage of US campuses in ferment. When Gallup asked Americans in March where their sympathies lay, 51% stood with Israel, while 27% backed the Palestinians. But among Democrats and young people, it’s the Palestinians who prevail, by eight-point margins in both cases.Those are the numbers that weigh on Biden and his re-election team, as they face the unravelling of the coalition that defeated Donald Trump in 2020. A period of newly intense suffering in Gaza will alienate yet more of the voters they need to win. The White House asked Netanyahu to show them a plan that would achieve a goal they regarded as legitimate – the removal from Rafah of Hamas’s last remaining battalions – but without risking mass civilian casualties. Netanyahu could not do it. Which is why Washington has resorted to a more direct means of making him stop.It’s become a test of strength that Biden cannot afford to lose. He made an all-out attack on Rafah a red line: if Netanyahu crosses it, that makes Biden look weak. Facing an opponent, Trump, determined to make strong v weak the defining choice of the coming election, he cannot let that stand.But still Netanyahu refuses to buckle, telling his people ahead of Israeli independence day that they will fight alone, without US arms, with their fingernails, if they have to. He wants to sound Churchillian, but these are words of weakness, not strength. For he is pulled in two directions: Washington wants him to stay out of Rafah, while his far-right coalition partners, the ultra-nationalists Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, insist he go in hard, to finish the job and win a “total victory” over Hamas.US support may be essential for Israel’s national interest, but in a contest of Biden v Ben-Gvir, there was only going to be one winner. Without the latter’s support, Netanyahu loses his coalition. Suddenly, he will have to face the voters itching to punish him for the failures that led to 7 October, as well as the courts, for a resumed trial on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Which is why he will always buckle to the bigots to his right. It may have Netanyahu’s name on it, but this is Ben-Gvir’s government now.It’s the same logic that has led Netanyahu to drag his feet in talks to broker a ceasefire and release the Israeli hostages still held in the darkness by Hamas. Biden wants him to do a deal, because Biden needs this war over. The Israeli public want him to do a deal, because they are desperate to bring the captives home. But Ben-Gvir is the man who opposed the last and only agreed hostage release deal, back in November. He prefers to keep pounding Gaza, harder and harder, in search of an illusory and impossible victory. And because that’s what Ben-Gvir wants, that’s what Netanyahu gives him – even if it means pushing Biden into an ever tighter corner.Still, Biden and Netanyahu are not the only players in this bleak drama. Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza, has his own calculations, his own determination to remain in charge. Those who have studied him closely believe his priority is not so much an end to the killing of innocent civilians – on the contrary, the more Gazans who die, the more damage that does to the international standing of his enemy, Israel – but rather a scenario that allows him to claim victory. Sinwar thought he had that earlier this week, with the deal Hamas loudly accepted. The stumbling block is the agreed duration of any cessation of violence. Sinwar does not want it to be temporary, even if that would save many lives and ease the misery of Gaza. He wants a declaration that the war is permanently over. And for that he can wait.And so there is no deal, because neither Netanyahu nor Sinwar believes what’s on offer serves their interests. As the former US state department official Aaron David Miller puts it: “The only party that’s really in a hurry is Biden.” Though that’s not quite right. Also in a hurry are the hostages and their families, whose agony has endured for more than 200 days, and the civilians of Rafah, huddled in tents, grieving their tens of thousands of dead, without running water or sanitation. They’re in a hurry too. But no one is listening to them.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Netanyahu says Israel will ‘stand alone’ as White House says major Rafah invasion wouldn’t help efforts to defeat Hamas – as it happened

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      Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel will “stand alone” if needed in its attempt to defeat Hamas, Reuters reported.Netanyahu’s latest comments come after Biden threatened to stop providing military aid to Israel if Israel launches a major military operation in Rafah.In a statement, Netanyahu said: “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails.”Netanyahu’s recent remarks signal towards an increased tension between Israel and US as Israel continues its attacks in Gaza.
      Biden last night said the US will stop supplying specific weapons to Israel if it launches a major ground operation in Rafah in Gaza – a move commended by progressive lawmakers like Senator Bernie Sanders and democratic US house representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
      In response, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials said Israel will “stand alone” if needed in order to defeat Hamas – a show of blatant disregard for the US, with whom Israel has a historically ironclad relationship.
      Republican house speaker Mike Johnson expressed surprise at Biden’s threat to Israel, saying it was a “complete turn” from his previous positions. Johnson accused Biden of having a “senior moment.”
      Senior Biden administration officials like Mag Gen Patrick Rider of the Pentagon underscored the US’s opposition to Israel’s looming invasion of Rafah. State department spokesperson Matthew Miller said an invasion would not bring security to Israel and could further imperil the lives of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
      That’s it for this blog. Thank you for following along.Rider also added the US would continue to try and ensure humanitarian aid will reach Palestinians by land, sea, and air. Up until now, Israel has placed severe restrictions on humanitarian aid.Earlier this week, the head of the United Nations World Food Program said parts of Gaza have entered a “full-blown famine”.In the Pentagon’s daily press briefing, Mag Gen Patrick Rider was asked why restrictions weren’t placed on these bombs earlier in the conflict, considering the mass civilian loss they are known to inflict.In response, Rider said: “We absolutely do not want to see innocent lives lost in this tragic conflict. We’re going to continue to consult with Israel … and continue to ensure civilian safety is taken into account.”When asked if the Biden administration knew of how many civilian deaths were caused by these 2,000lb US bombs used by Israel, Rider declined to answer.The vast majority of the more than 34,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza so far have been women, children, and other civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry.Israel’s minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made his position on Biden’s announcement to potentially suspend weapons clear:Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), the organization founded by the late journalist Jamal Khashoggi, issued a statement on Biden’s suspension of massive bombs to Israel, urging the president to do more.Dawn’s advocacy director Raed Jarrar said: “Israel has time and again made clear that it will not heed the gentlest of admonishments from the Biden administration to stop its carnage in Gaza. The Biden administration should abandon wishful notions that it can positively impact Israel’s conduct and focus on ending American complicity in Israel’s war crimes and genocidal policies.”State department spokesperson Matthew Miller addresses Biden’s threats to withhold weapons from Israel in a press briefing.Miller underscores the Biden administration’s opposition to a major Rafah invasion and the belief it will weaken Israeli security, but still supports Israel’s right to defend itself against other threats. He does not clarify if withholding weapons from Israel applies to other threats.He says the amount of civilian lives lost in Gaza is “unacceptable,” but adds Israel has “achieved a great deal of its military objectives” in degrading Hamas.Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that Israel will “stand alone” if needed in its attempt to defeat Hamas, Reuters reported.Netanyahu’s latest comments come after Biden threatened to stop providing military aid to Israel if Israel launches a major military operation in Rafah.In a statement, Netanyahu said: “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone. If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails. But we have much more than fingernails.”Netanyahu’s recent remarks signal towards an increased tension between Israel and US as Israel continues its attacks in Gaza.White House spokesperson John Kirby emphasized during his Thursday briefing that weapons are still being shipped to Israel.The clarification comes after Biden threatened to pause military aid to Israel if Israel launched a massive military assault in Rafah.Kirby said: “Weapons shipments are still going to Israel. And they’re still getting the vast, vast majority of everything that they need to defend themselves.”From Washington Post reporter John Hudson:Here is more context on the significance and nuances of Biden’s latest decision, from Politico.
      Biden’s “statement was the clearest conditioning of aid that the administration has made since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza”, [Politico’s] Jonathan Lemire and Jennifer Haberkorn write. “And it sent immediate ripples through national politics, with conservatives accusing the president of abandoning a long-held ally and some liberals hailing the pronouncement.”
      It’s hard to overemphasize what a big deal this is. For decades, American presidents from both major parties have supported Israel with few to no questions asked. But Biden and the administration have been increasingly irritated by Netanyahu for months, specifically on the threats to invade Rafah and the number of civilians Israel has killed over the last seven months.
      But there’s more nuance than appears at first blush:
      First: The Israeli military is already in Rafah. They’ve been bombing the area for weeks, but haven’t yet mounted a massive ground invasion. Which is why, as [Politico’s] Erin Banco reports, to “aid groups working in Rafah, the debate over Israel’s military operation in southern Gaza looks like only one thing: semantics.”
      Second: Though Biden made clear that while he would no longer send the IDF weapons they could use in Rafah, the U.S. will continue to send defensive weapons.
      “We’re going to continue to make sure Israel is secure in terms of Iron Dome and their ability to respond to attacks,” Biden told CNN. “But … it’s just wrong. We’re not going to – we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells.”
      At the heart of it, Biden’s warning to Netanyahu is that there are other ways to go after Hamas in Rafah – and those alternatives are the only approaches the White House finds acceptable, a Biden administration official told Playbook last night.
      The White House said that a major invasion of Rafah by Israel would not advance attempts by Israel to defeat Hamas, a spokesperson said on Thursday, Reuters reported.“Smashing into Rafah, in [Biden’s] view, will not advance that objective,” spokesperson John Kirby said in a media briefing.Kirby added that conversations about Rafah between the US and Israel are still ongoing.The latest remarks from Kirby come as Biden and other US officials have repeatedly denounced a military operation in Rafah, noting that such a move would lead to a humanitarian crisis.More Democratic congressmen have supported Biden’s threat to block US weapons to Israel if Israel launches a major military assault in Rafah.US representative Seth Moulton said that he was “more skeptical” of Israel’s plans to invade Rafah after meeting with the Israeli ambassador on Wednesday and supports Biden’s decision, in a post to X.
      I’ve always said that Israel must defeat Hamas. The question is whether invading Rafah ultimately helps or hurts that cause. After meeting with the Israeli Ambassador today for an hour, I’m even more skeptical of their plan. I support President Biden’s decision.
      House speaker Mike Johnson said that he hoped Biden was having a “senior moment” after hearing about his threat to withhold US military aid to Israel.In an interview with Politico Wednesday, Johnson spoke about his reaction to Biden’s latest warning:
      My reaction, honestly, was, ‘Wow, that is a complete turn from what I have been told, even in, you know, recent hours … I mean, 24 hours ago, it was confirmed to me by top administration officials that the policy’s very different than what he stated there. So I hope that’s a senior moment.
      Johnson said that he had had “classified discussions” with “top administration officials” on Wednesday and was told there would be no delays with supplying weapons to Israel.He added that after Biden’s announcement, he approach White House officials who told him that the Biden’s threat does not impact the aid package passed by Congress.Johnson said:
      So this statement by the president tonight, I just want to – I hope, I believe he’s off-script. I don’t think that’s something that staff told him to say.
      US representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who previously called Israel’s attacks on Gaza an “unfolding genocide”, said that “[Biden]’s historic shift to include Israel in US standards makes the world safer and our values clear.”“President Biden enforcing conditions on US military aid and holding the Israeli gov to the same bar we hold all our allies to is the responsible, secure, and just thing to do,” she added.Other progressive representatives have applauded Biden’s threat to withhold US military aid to Israel if Israel launches a major military operation in Rafah.Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley said Biden’s threat of withholding US military air is the “right and just thing … to do”, in a post to X.“The United States has a clear obligation to stop the massacre of innocent civilians,” she added.Defence minister Yoav Gallant told Israel’s “enemies and friends” on Wednesday that it would do whatever necessary to achieve its war aims in Gaza and the north, in an apparent response to US pressure to halt its operation in Rafah, reports Reuters.The comments, at a ceremony to commemorate Israel’s war dead, followed US president Joe Biden’s warning that the US would halt weapons supplies if Israel moved into Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.“I turn to Israel’s enemies as well as to our best of friends and say – the State of Israel cannot be subdued,” he said, according to remarks released by his office. “We will stand strong, we will achieve our goals – we will hit Hamas, we will hit Hezbollah, and we will achieve security.”The comments, from one of the war cabinet ministers considered to be most sensitive to the risk of alienating the US, underlined the scale of the standoff between the Biden administration and the Israeli government, said Reuters.“We have no choice, we have no other country. We will do whatever is necessary, and I repeat – whatever is necessary, in order to defend the citizens of Israel, to remove the evil threats against us, and to stand up to those who attempt to destroy us,” he said.Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defied mounting international pressure to agree to a ceasefire but has not so far ordered troops to enter Rafah, where Israel says four battalions of Hamas fighters are based.In the north, Israeli forces have been engaged in exchanges of fire across the Lebanon border with forces of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia ever since the start of the war in Gaza last October.Other Israeli officials have vowed to pursue Israel’s military goals in Gaza despite Biden’s threat to cut off US weapons if Israel launches a major military assault on Rafah.Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said his government would pursue its goals in Gaza despite the US warning, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).“We will achieve complete victory in this war despite President Biden’s push back and arms embargo,” Smotrich said in a statement.“We must continue the war until Hamas is totally eliminated and our hostages are back home. This involves conquering Rafah completely and the sooner the better.”Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, also criticized Biden’s remarks, noting that Biden’s latest warning could give Israel’s adversaries “hope to succeed”.“If Israel is restricted from entering an area as important and central as Rafah where there are thousands of terrorists, hostages and leaders of Hamas, how exactly are we supposed to achieve our goals?” he said on public radio.“This is not a defensive weapon. This is about certain offensive bombs. In the end the State of Israel will have to do what it thinks needs to be done for the security of its citizens.”Progressive representative Ilhan Omar acknowledged the work of student protesters after Biden said that US bombs supplied to Israel have been used to kill civilians in Gaza.In a post to X, Omar said that “young people across the country protesting” helped move Biden’s rhetoric. Omar specifically highlighted Biden saying that “civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs”, referring to US bombs supplied to Israel.Omar said:
      This is what young people across the country were protesting for and finally the needle has moved in a significant way. I hope we see more progress, but don’t ever let people tell you that your voices are meaningless and your actions are worthless. The arc of what is possible is always within us to bend.
      Omar’s remarks are one of many reactions from progressive lawmakers at Biden’s threat to stop arm shipments to Israel if there is a major military assault in Rafah.Progressive lawmakers welcomed Joe Biden’s decision that the US will stop supplying bombs and other munitions to Israel if it launches a major military assault on the southern city of Rafah in Gaza.US representative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin celebrated the announcement in a post to X.“No offensive weapons in Rafah. Good! Thank you [Biden]! Millions of innocent Palestinians have been forced into a corner. Now it’s time for a ceasefire and to release all the hostages. It’s time to end the bloodshed once and for all.”Former Bernie Sanders adviser Matt Duss told Politico: “He’s shifting on a really important point here because the moment requires it, and I applaud that. It’s a recognition of how dire this moment is.” He added: “I understand folks who are having a tough time with the fact that this took so long, but I think it’s really important, you know, to acknowledge the steps the president is taking now.”Republicans, including the House speaker, Mike Johnson, have criticized Biden’s latest action. Johnson called the decision a “betrayal” as the question of military aid had already been voted on in Congress.Two top Israeli officials criticized US president Joe Biden on Thursday for threatening to stop certain arms supplies to Israel if it invades Rafah, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).“This is a difficult and very disappointing statement to hear from a president to whom we have been grateful since the beginning of the war,” Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said on public radio in Israel’s first reaction to Biden’s warning.Biden’s announcement comes as the US, UN and humanitarian agencies have warned that an invasion of Rafah – where millions of Palestinian people have been displaced amid Israeli attacks – would trigger a humanitarian crisis.“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah – they haven’t gone in Rafah yet – if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, to deal with the cities – that deal with that problem,” Biden said during an interview with CNN.“We’re not going to supply the weapons and the artillery shells used,” Biden added. More