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Good evening. It's Wednesday, October 18.
Tonight: Joe Biden arrived today in Israel, where he stood at the side of Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu and pledged: "I come to Israel with a single message: you’re not alone. As long as the United States stands – and we will stand forever – we will not let you ever be alone.”
News reports today indicated that the White House would seek billions more for Israel beyond the almost $4 billion a year it already transfers there automatically under an agreement signed by President Obama, all as part of a $100 billion package of new spending that will also include more war funding for Ukraine, with some leftover for border security and disaster relief for Americans.
The U.S. government today further emphasized its support for the Israeli war effort by being the only country to veto a proposal at the U.N. Security Council offered by Brazil, one that condemns Hamas's attack, but also calls for Israel to allow humanitarian assistance, food, water and medicine to enter Gaza, a place which Israel, as a response to the attack by Hamas last Saturday, announced it would prevent the entry of food, water, fuel and medication.
When it came to full-scale U.S. support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, one of the points we repeatedly emphasized on this program is that the central overarching question when it comes to U.S. foreign policy in general and the involvement of the U.S. government in other countries, wars, in particular, is whether such policies enhance the security of the American people or whether such policies weaken that security. At least in theory, it is the fundamental duty of the U.S. government to take actions that improve the lives of American citizens by promoting their prosperity or strengthening their security. When it came to the U.S. role in Ukraine, we repeatedly searched, I think, in vain, for an explanation as to how the spending of tens of billions of dollars or hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer resources and war aid to Kiev benefits the American people and makes them safer, more prosperous or more secure. It does not do that. The only people benefiting from Biden's war policies in Ukraine, besides the Ukrainians receiving that amount of money, are a tiny sliver of American elites who work for or have ownership and weapons manufacturers such as Boeing and Raytheon, or those who work inside the U.S. security state whose budget and powers inevitably expand during times of war. But because the American people are only hurt and not helped by U.S. involvement in Ukraine, we could not see and still do not see how that policy could be justified.
It seems clear that the same inquiry must be applied to the announcement today by President Biden that the U.S. will be the central partner of Israel in prosecuting its latest war in Gaza – by funding their war effort, feeding them the weapons and bombs that will be used against Palestinians in Gaza and providing critical diplomatic cover and support as the U.S. did today by standing alone at the UN and exercising its veto. As was true for Ukraine. There is a lot of talk right now about the moral justification for the U.S. involvement in this new war, but there's almost no discussion of whether American support for Israel, will make Americans safer or for that matter, whether it will make Israelis safer. It is, though, that question yet again, is the least important in inquiry in Washington. We would submit it it should be the most important inquiry. There are many lessons in the recent history of the United States and its various wars, including but not only the United States, its various responses to the 9/11 attack, that shed significant light on whether increasing its bombing and violence in that region will make it less likely that people want to attack the United States and Americans, or whether it will make it more likely that people will do so. That inquiry is crucial and we will try to explore and argue that it ought to be the dominant question.
then. Briahna Joy Gray is the host of the daily morning show “Rising,” which is broadcast by the longtime inside-DC media outlet, The Hill. That was the show Rising that catapulted Crystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti to a certain kind of success and fame by being the hosts of that show, and then, they left for independent pastures and Briahna took over and now hosts that show. And she also is my former colleague at The Intercept, as well as the press secretary for the 2020 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders. She has been doing something rare in the media over the last ten days: rather than mindlessly recite the pro-Israel narrative that dominates the bipartisan consensus in Washington, she instead has done her job as a journalist by questioning and expressing critiques of both the Israeli response and Biden's war policies. As we have pointed out many times over the last week, it feels as though we have jettisoned ourselves in a time machine back to September and October 2001, when no dissent was tolerated. No matter how marginalized and rare it was, it was adamant that there be no question that everybody was on board with that consensus. Any attempts to question or dissent from U.S. policy meant that one was branded as “pro-terrorist” or on the side of al-Qaida. And now the most popular label is pro-Hamas. As a result of Gray doing her job, asking questions and offering critiques rather than obediently submitting to the U.S. and Israeli claims, colleagues of hers at The Hill have crawled in the most cowardly way possible to the media, or more specifically, the liberal tabloid The Daily Beast in order to explicitly call for corporate bosses that only control that program to fire her, as a result of her off-key reporting and commentary. We'll talk to Briahna about what this says about the prevailing climate for free speech and a free press in the United States. And we'll also talk to her about the war itself, as well as the current inability of the House Republicans to pick a speaker of the House. The second ballot where they tried to elect Jim Jordan, resulted in fewer votes for him than the first time around. It looks increasingly unlikely that he will get the votes necessary to be the speaker.
After that, we will also speak to the independent journalist and friend of the show, Michael Tracey, about the war in Gaza and Biden's support for Israel, as well as the war in Ukraine – remember that? – and the latest failure of Jim Jordan to secure enough votes to become speaker. In sum, there are few more consequential policies than the one Joe Biden announced today while standing at Netanyahu's side in Israel. While we know very well that this is a polarizing issue, including among our audience, we hope that everyone can agree that we will all benefit from safeguarding open debate and guaranteeing the right of journalistic questioning rather than media outlets performing their normal function of acting as propaganda arms for the always bipartisan U.S. foreign policy community.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
