#Egypt released 46 detainees Tuesday, apparently political cases, names not confirmed, in PR buildup to show compliance with human rights conditions on $300M in blocked US weapons, give @SecBlinken excuse he wants to waive condition.
Don't fall for it.
@SecBlinken In past week, #Egypt has also indicted @hosambahgat leading human rights activist, arrested a scholar coming home for a family visit, and today sentenced another 6 Egyptians to die, and 37 to life imprisonment.
This is on top of 50,000 political detainees languishing in prisons
@SecBlinken@hosambahgat And on top of that, in mind-boggling brazenness, Egypt intelligence chief Abbas Kamel showed up in DC a few weeks ago, palm out, but demanding that US jail US citizen @soltan complaining US didn't keep its "promise" to jail him in exchange for securing his release in Egypt
@SecBlinken@hosambahgat@soltan Expect mucho PR yang yang in coming weeks eg bloated claims of Egypt's "critical role" in #Gaza, Egypt's release of detainees, Egypt's fight against terrorism, all in buildup to @POTUS breaking another promise, waiving block on military aid, & signing a new blank check to Sisi
@SecBlinken@hosambahgat@soltan@POTUS The usual suspects in Congress will also chime in about how important it is for Israel's "security" that US continue to provide arms to Egypt's terrorist-in-chief, coup leader Sisi.
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For decades, a steady flow of funds —more than $50 billion in military aid plus $30 billion in economic aid since 1978—has assured Egyptian leaders that they possess something world’s dictators value far more than even most advanced military hardware: political support from US
steady stream into their coffers sends important message to ordinary Egyptians, too. No matter what state-sponsored torture or terror they suffer, US has their govts back, &aside from the occasional stern statement of concern, US will do nothing to end support for their abusers.
Yet again people of color and #BLM leading all of America to wake up about racism and oppression at home -- and also in #Palestine -- based on a shared understanding of what a boot to the neck actually feels like aje.io/ejfpq via @AJEnglish
As @saharazizlaw explains "a 21st-century anti-racism movement is schooling Americans on how powerful manipulate media, politics, & economics to oppress entire groups of people, while blaming those same people for their hardships."
"As these lessons are increasingly applied to #Palestine, the question is when, not whether, US foreign policy will finally come to value Palestinian life."
“The strictly controlled public narrative, handled in the United States not only by Israeli government spokespersons but the lobbying group @AIPAC, @AJCGlobal American Jewish Committee, and @adl Anti-Defamation League cheerleaders in America, has snowballed out of their control.”
What is new and qualitatively different is the vigorous and unapologetic analytic criticism of Israel—and U.S. policy that has provided it with billions in annual, unconditional military support for the past several decades—that has seeped into mainstream discourse.
When the US provides military & diplomatic support to an abusive, apartheid govt that is committing crimes against humanity, the US is breaching its own human rights obligations not to contribute to human rights abuses. It is also breaching US law that prohibits aid to abusers.
This is what impunity looks like. It means enforcing a system to ensure an abusive actor cannot be held accountable, or even be forced to stop at least some of its bad acts.
The US *enforces* Israeli impunity at the UNSC. It always has.