What Happened Today: July 28, 2023
Coup in Niger; Trump indictment expanded; Is RFK in danger?; Ted Cruz on aid to Israel
The Big Story
A squad from Niger’s military proclaimed themselves the Defense and Security Forces and removed the democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum from power on Wednesday. The military command of Niger’s armed forces then announced it would not interfere in the coup d’état, effectively ceding power to the small group of revolutionaries now in command. The man in charge is Gen. Abdourahmane Tchiani, who told the nation in a televised address on Friday that the action taken to remove Bazoum was necessary because the ongoing threat of jihadist terrorists had “continued [to deteriorate] the security situation.” Soon after, the rebel group of security officers declared that the constitution had been suspended.
The removal of Bazoum is a slap in the face to the United States and France, who have invested heavily in Niger since Bazoum’s election, perhaps to counter the growing Russian influence in neighboring countries. Nonetheless, many of the pro-coup supporters have taken to the streets to wave Russian flags. Also at stake is Niger’s store of precious resources, which at one time accounted for the fourth-largest stock of uranium in the world.
The United States operates a $100 million drone base in the nation, from which it stages counterterrorism strikes on regional insurgents—though it doesn’t have a very good track record. Since the United States began counterterrorism operations in the region, violent events have increased 30,000%, and there have been 10 coups in West Africa carried out by U.S.-trained forces since 2008.
In The Back Pages: Dead Wrong
The Rest
→ Former president Donald Trump was indicted on even more felony charges on Thursday, including an obstruction-of-justice claim related to him ordering staff at his Mar-a-Lago property to destroy security footage sought by investigators. According to prosecutors, a Trump employee named Carlos De Oliveira pressured another staffer to delete a server with footage that had been requested by prosecutors just days before. Apparently, De Oliveira told the employee that the “boss” wanted it done, and Trump called De Oliveira later that day, though the content of their conversation is unknown. Trump is also facing charges related to classified war plans against Iran that U.S. attorneys say he shared with civilians. On Thursday, the Trump campaign said the indictment was “desperate and flailing.”
→ Thread of the Day:
https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1684595375875760128
Chair of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan (R) lays out a series of internal Facebook communications his committee acquired through subpoena that seem to show the Biden White House pressuring Facebook to remove content that negatively portrayed COVID-19 vaccines, even when that content was clearly satirical in nature. The close communication between White House officials and Facebook also included requests to remove posts that claimed the pandemic was the result of a lab leak. Not everyone at Facebook was convinced this was such a good idea, however, with one employee saying this kind of censorship might make people even more vaccine hesitant. “There may be risk of pushing them further toward hesitancy by suppressing their speech and making them feel marginalized by large institutions,” the staffer said in a memo.
→ Tweet of the Day:
We’ll leave it right there.
→ President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador’s hard-line approach to curbing the brutal gang violence that has wracked the country for years has made him extremely popular with his people, garnering him 93% support in a recent survey, the highest of any leader in the world. Since Bukele began his campaign of total war against the gangs last March, he has already incarcerated 1% of the nation’s population under the auspices of a 15-day state of emergency that he has kept running ever since. The government says all the imprisoned will be put on trial over the next two years, in large groups reminiscent of the Italian trials against the mafia in the 1980s. While some critics point out the widespread possibility of wrongful incarceration as authorities make arrests on sometimes flimsy pretenses, the approach has nonetheless inspired neighboring Honduras, which appears poised to implement a similar crackdown on gang violence as it builds the only island prison in the Western Hemisphere.
→ Quote of the Day:
It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime. No one should live in fear in our city.
That’s the Oakland NAACP in a public statement released on Thursday, which among other things, encourages “White, Latino, [and] Asian” residents to speak up about the crime problem facing the city without fear of being accused of racism. The NAACP also takes the government to task for how it has handled crime and job creation in the city by the bay. It writes that the public-safety crisis has become “intolerable” and that anti-police policies and lack of alternatives for Oakland’s youth are to blame. Still, some Oakland residents are pessimistic about the possibility for immediate change. After a Thursday-night town hall in the neighborhood of Montclair let loose a barrage of criticism over the lack of policing toward Alameda County DA Pamela Price, one resident told CBS News it was all just “a lot of jabbering that didn’t have much value.”
→ Many fellow Republicans are lambasting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida over a part of his curriculum overhaul, which includes a segment that some say minimizes the brutality of American slavery. Part of the new guidelines for Florida’s middle-school curriculum about slavery include this language: “Slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, a competitor of DeSantis for president, commented on the curriculum content: “There is no silver lining in slavery.” Florida Republican Congressman Byron Donalds also criticized that portion of the curriculum while saying that overall it was “good, robust & accurate.” DeSantis says the curriculum is being misinterpreted, while Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has added that he believes the entire school overhaul DeSantis is undertaking in Florida is a purely political move to outflank Trump to the right.
→ The Brazilian Justice Ministry denied a U.S. extradition request on Thursday for a Russian national, 37-year-old Sergey Cherkasov, who the United States believes was spying on the United States while living in Washington D.C. on a fake Brazilian passport. He is currently imprisoned in Brasilia by the Brazilians for his passport forgery, and will remain there at least five more years. Both the United States and Russia have requested Cherkasov’s extradition, and some believe that the United States wants him as a bargaining chip to use in exchange for jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
→ Some Republican lawmakers are pursuing new legislation to push back against the little-talked-about executive order issued by President Biden in 2021 to leverage all major government agencies to register voters, particularly those who face “challenges to exercise their fundamental right to vote.” The Republican lawmakers accuse the Biden administration of using executive power to pursue its political goals for 2024. One bill currently sponsored by New York GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney seeks to nullify the order through the American Confidence in Elections Act, which is not surprising, as Tenney was one of the co-signers of a January 2022 letter that said the Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting is all but “identical to a federal election takeover plan crafted by the radical left-leaning group known as Demos.” As a new RealClearInvestigations story this week points out, Demos has admitted to working in collaboration with federal agencies to implement the order, while FOIA requests for more information about how exactly the executive order is being carried out have been denied in court.
TODAY IN TABLET:
Cakes and Ale by What Really Matters
Walter and Jeremy discuss the Sino-Russian alliance, the U.S. national debt, the rise of the European right, Roosevelt vs. Wilson, and the Puritan-woke connection
Time to Stop Toeing the Line by Caroline B. Glick
U.S. military aid is making IDF generals place Washington’s interests above Israel’s
SCROLL TIP LINE: Have a lead on a story or something going on in your workplace, school, congregation, or social scene that you want to tell us about? Send your tips, comments, questions, and suggestions to scroll@tabletmag.com.
The publication on July 16, 2023, of an article by Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz calling for an end to U.S. aid to Israel opened a fresh debate over a topic dominated by outdated assumptions and emotional entreaties. To deepen the conversation, Tablet invited a group that includes a retired IDF general, U.S. Senators and members of Congress, former Middle East diplomats, and writers from various political persuasions to offer their thoughts on the issue. We will be publishing them in the Scroll today and next week.
Dead Wrong
Biden’s White House is stabbing Israel in the back. Ending military aid will be the final twist of the knife.
By Ted Cruz
Tablet magazine’s recent article “End U.S. Aid to Israel” has sparked a badly needed debate over how American administrations, and especially the Biden administration, have used military assistance to coerce Israel and undermine Israeli national security. Because we rely on our Israeli allies for everything from scientific research to intelligence sharing to military cooperation, the Biden administration’s policies are also undermining the security and prosperity of Americans.
The article describes how the Biden administration has tried to distance the United States from our traditional Middle Eastern allies and boost the Iranian regime, and how the pressure they impose on Israel is both part of their campaign to create that distance and a way to keep the Israelis from objecting. As a solution, the article suggests ending American military aid to Israel.
I believe Tablet magazine is one of America’s premier papers of ideas. I deeply appreciate the outlet and its writers, including Liel Leibovitz, who recently wrote a generous profile of me for the magazine describing me as “America’s most Israeli politician,” and who is also one of the two authors of the article.
Nevertheless, Tablet got this one very wrong.
The authors of “End U.S. Aid to Israel,” Leibovitz and Jacob Siegel, are certainly not wrong that the U.S. benefits immeasurably from the aid we provide to Israel. We get back at least 10 times more than what we send. It would take us uncountable billions to recreate some of the military advances and intelligence capabilities that the Israelis provide to us. There are other capabilities we literally could not recreate, for reasons ranging from geography to institutional capacity. The military and intelligence assets that Israel develops and uses protect American lives.
They are also certainly not wrong about the Biden administration’s hostility toward Israel. President Biden and Biden officials are pathologically obsessed with undermining Israel’s security and the U.S.-Israel relationship. From the opening days of the administration, they have pursued a campaign against Israel that is granular, whole-of-government, and often conducted in secret. These policies are also uniting Arab countries with Iran, and driving them to shelter beneath a Chinese umbrella.
The problem with the argument made by the Tablet authors is that it still nevertheless underestimates the breadth, depth, and—most importantly—the mechanics of how the Biden administration has been undermining Israel’s security and the U.S.-Israel alliance. An enormous amount of how the Biden administration attacks Israel has nothing to do with aid or even pressure. If all military aid was immediately ended, the anti-Israel zealots in the administration wouldn’t miss a beat.
A crucial and underappreciated benefit of military assistance to Israel is that it provides a framework for American and Israeli officials to discuss our mutual interests and how to pursue them. The article’s authors rightly criticize the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) as a gambit by the Obama administration to constrain future Israeli actions. One of the most subtly damaging parts of the MOU—and I discussed this with Prime Minister Netanyahu directly at the time—was that it froze levels of military assistance and explicitly prohibited Israeli officials from engaging Congress on the issue. Many members of Congress tend to be overwhelmingly pro-Israel because the American people are overwhelmingly pro-Israel. The Obama officials who penned the MOU knew what they were trying to accomplish by cutting off American lawmakers from Israeli officials by freezing aid levels, and Siegel and Leibovitz understand it as well. However, eliminating aid would repeat exactly that move.
The hostility that the Biden administration has shown toward Israel makes the Obama-era policies look tame by comparison. Again: They have pursued a campaign against Israel that is granular, whole-of-government, and often conducted in secret. Consider 10 examples:
First, in the opening days of the administration the White House instructed the State Department to stop signaling support for the Abraham Accords. The State Department implemented those instructions by issuing guidance that prohibited even using the phrase “Abraham Accords.” None of these changes was acknowledged publicly.
Second, State Department officials issued verbal guidance that prohibited funding for joint U.S.-Israel science and technology projects in Judea and Samaria, including parts of Jerusalem. The guidance did something America has never done before: unilaterally impose territorial restrictions on U.S. scientific research aid to Israel. The projects which are being targeted are for curing cancer and easing aging. It is simply an antisemitic boycott. Decades ago, the U.S. and Israel bilaterally agreed to such limits against the backdrop of unique regional conditions, but in 2020 both sides rescinded and rejected them as discriminatory. But in June 2023 the State Department began distributing in writing their new guidance to all relevant federal agencies—effectively endorsing and implementing BDS. Tellingly, this guidance was not cleared through the State Department’s own special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, and of course administration officials did not formally notify Congress or make the policy public.
Third, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor issued a $1 million Notice of Funding Opportunity grant offer for work by nongovernmental organizations to delegitimize Israel, which likewise was not cleared by the department’s own antisemitism envoy.
Fourth, the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) quietly changed the name of the bureau that handles Israel from “Israel and Palestinian Affairs” to “Israeli and Palestinian Affairs,” the idea being to level the relationships that the U.S. has with our Israeli allies and with the Palestinians.
Fifth, the Office of Palestinian Affairs gave a Bronze Age Judean relic to the Palestinian Authority as “an example of Palestinian cultural patrimony,” a literal erasure of the ancient Jewish connection to Israel.
Sixth, State Department diplomats at the United Nations rejoined, engaged, and boosted U.N. organizations that promote anti-Israel and antisemitic incitement.
It is worth pausing here and noting a couple things. None of these policies was advanced by leveraging aid to Israel, and none of it would have been hindered if aid to Israel was reduced. And all those policies were just from inside the State Department. The Biden administration’s assault on Israel, of course, has been whole of government.
Seventh, the Department of Defense and the Israeli military held the “Juniper Oak” military exercises. As with the Obama-era MOU, what could have been a way to enhance military cooperation was instead turned into a way to constrain Israel’s ability to defend itself. According to Dan Shapiro, Obama’s former ambassador to Israel who was on the Biden administration team tasked with securing a new nuclear deal with Iran, the U.S.-Israeli exercises were meant to “make it less likely that one acts independently without close coordination with the other”—in other words, designed to tie the hands of Israel’s military.
Eighth, the Department of Justice unleashed the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Israel in response to an incident in which a Palestinian American journalist was killed covering a firefight between Israeli forces and terrorists, even after other parts of the administration had concluded the death was accidental.
Ninth, the Departments of Justice and State worked together to circumvent multiple congressional sanctions targeting the Palestine Liberation Organization, a terrorist group, so they could bring to Washington, D.C., the group’s secretary general for high-level press briefings—while the administration was simultaneously shunning cabinet ministers from Israel’s democratically elected government. Top officials from across the administration publicly told reporters and testified to Congress that such engagement was advancing American national security interests, but in nonpublic notices the State Department expressly confirmed to Congress that the Palestinian Authority continues to pay for acts of terrorism against Israeli and U.S. citizens.
Tenth, despite such terror financing, the State Department and specifically the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Palestinian controlled areas. Tens of millions of dollars of that funding was incorrectly entered into government databases in ways that prevented public and congressional scrutiny. Roughly $20 million sent to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip was entered as going elsewhere. In one case a $5 million award to the Gaza Strip was publicly reported with the wrong amount, the wrong location, and deliberately anonymized (had it not been anonymized, it would have been clear the money was going to Gaza). None of these mistakes was made public by the administration.
This list is not comprehensive.
Again, none of these policies would be hampered by reducing military aid to our Israeli allies. Quite the opposite: Eliminating aid would provide momentum to the deeply reckless policies already being pursued by the Biden administration, which have acutely endangered American and Israeli national security.
Now, some people have called the Biden administration’s policy inexplicable. It’s quite explicable. The Biden administration is controlled by fringe progressives who hate Israel. Their policies are controlled by the Squad, and the Squad detests the Jewish state. As one member of the Squad recently asserted—not even bothering to hide her vicious antisemitism— “we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state.”
There is no doubt that as part of their collective antipathy toward Israel, these Biden administration officials have at times leveraged American aid to Israel to advance reckless policies undermining Israeli security and the U.S.-Israel relationship. Eliminating that aid, however, would not counter those policies and would pile on risks.
The obvious, straightforward solution is to continue to provide the military assistance that our Israeli allies need to protect their security and ours—and at the same time, fight to stop the Biden administration’s reckless anti-Israel policies.
We will feature a piece from the collection every day next week, but to get a head start, go here.
Sen Cruz has it right on the issue. I am a fan of Mr. Leibovitz but I think he is frustrated with Biden admin and is lashing out with ideas that are emotional..though Liel speaks calmly. I dont blame him for the frustration, but the solution is not eliminating the important US Israeli military connection. Even with zero in military support, the anti Israel Left and alt right will come up with other excuses for the hate.
Thank you Senator Cruz. Any further words would “cheapen the gift”, as noted in Kung Fu.