Tank shells to Israel. Bypassing Congress, the Executive Dept. acts on its own. "Emergency" declared. Readers are challenged. Find any one, single, credible reporting account of whether the tank shells use depleted Uranium. UPDATE: Blitzkrieg?
Reports are widespread. Reports are largely consistent. None Crabgrass could find defining whether the shells deployed depleted Uranium. It seems a question MSM cares little about.
Readers likely by now have feelings about the Israeli conduct in Gaza; how civilian lives matter to IDF air force action, and ground conduct.
Running short of tank shells is not a sign of Israeli restraint.
The cited links describe the weapon in some detail, and all contain no mention of depleted uranium; leading Crabgrass to conclude that were it a weapon part at least one of the returned items would say so. The DSCA - State Department pdf news release states:
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale on December 8, 2023.
The Government of Israel has requested to buy thirteen thousand nine hundred eighty-one (13,981) 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose with Tracer (MPAT) tank cartridges. Also included are publications and technical documentation; U.S. Government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistics support services; studies and surveys; and other related elements of logistics and program support. The estimated total cost is $106.5 million.
The Secretary of State determined and provided detailed justification to Congress that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements under Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended.
The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives.
"Self-defense capability" is interesting language for what Israel is doing in Gaza. Next paragraph of the news release:
Israel will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense. Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces.
Does this mean the munitions will not be used in Gaza? "Strengthen its homeland defense" seems to imply that, while "deterrent to regional threats" implies the opposite. The Crabgrass guess is the shells are for use against Gaza infrastructure, people, and such, double speak being what it is.
___________FURTHER UPDATE__________
Ralph Nader, writing of Israeli conduct against Gazans terms it "blitzkrieg." In origin, the term "lightning war" meant quick, intense and decisive. The Israelis are not being quick and their leadership's expressed declared intentions are aimed less at quickness than thoroughness and permanence:
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was asked in an interview on 94FM
on Monday what would happen on the day after the war, and responded:
“Without the settlement enterprise it would be very difficult to control
the territory.”
Needless to say, by “settlement enterprise” Minister Smotrich was
referring to the 17 uprooted communities along the Gaza northern shore
and on the southeastern part of the Strip.
“What we have done in the last thirty years is to run away from
reality, and my opinion is that we must control both the security and
civil aspects of the Gaza Strip,” Smotrich stated.
At that point, the interviewers asked: “Including settlements?”
And Smotrich responded, “Without the settlement enterprise it would be very difficult to control the territory.”
With that, Netanyahu’s finance minister essentially declared his
desire to reverse an 18-year policy that views Jewish settlements in the
Gaza Strip as the mother of all evil.
Smotrich also said, “I’m not sure that giving the Palestinians an
independent economy is something that will boost security. And
transferring money to Gaza is a complete hallucination.”
This thinking by the controlling Israeli elite is terrorist rhetoric with no cause to believe it to be exaggeration. It is POLICY, not blowing smoke. It is the future as the current Israeli government sees it. You are a government minister - You speak; then you are speaking for the government. Not individually.
FURTHER: Two additional Nader authored items: Oct. 27, asking a range of questions; Nov. 22, calling it "Genocide." From the Oct. 27 item:
2. What is the connection between the stunning failure of the Israeli
government to protect its people on the border and the policy of P.M.
Netanyahu? Recall the New York Times (October 22, 2023) article
by prominent journalist, Roger Cohen, to wit: “All means were good to
undo the notion of Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Mr. Netanyahu told a
meeting of his center-right Likud party: ‘Those who want to thwart the
possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of
Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our
strategy.’” (Note: Israel and the U.S. fostered the rise of Islamic
Hamas in 1987 to counter the secular Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO)).
3. Why is Congress preparing to appropriate over $14
billion to Israel in military and other aid without any public hearings
and without any demonstrated fiscal need by Israel, a prosperous
economic, technological and military superpower with a social safety net
superior to that of the U.S.? USDA just reported over 44 million
Americans struggled with hunger in 2022. This, in the midst of a
childcare crisis. Should U.S. taxpayers be expected to pay for
Netanyahu’s colossal intelligence/military collapse?
4. Why
hasn’t the media reported on President Biden’s statement that the Gaza
Health Ministry’s body count (now over 7000 fatalities) is exaggerated?
All indications, however, are that it is a large undercount by Hamas to
minimize its inability to protect its people. Israel has fired over
8,000 powerful precision munitions and bombs so far. These have struck
many thousands of inhabited buildings – homes, apartments buildings,
over 120 health facilities, ambulances, crowded markets, fleeing
refugees, schools, water and sewage systems, and electric networks –
implementing Israeli military orders to cut off all food, water, fuel,
medicine and electricity to this already impoverished densely packed
area the size of Philadelphia. For those not directly slain, the deadly
harm caused by no food, water, medicine, medical facilities and fuel
will lead to even more deaths and serious injuries.
Note that
over three-quarters of Gaza’s population consists of children and women.
Soon there will be thousands of babies born to die in the rubble. Other
Palestinians will perish from untreated diseases, injuries,
dehydration, and from drinking contaminated water. With crumbled
sanitation facilities, physicians are fearing a deadly cholera epidemic.
Israel
bombed the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border. Only a tiny trickle
of trucks are now allowed there by Israel to carry food and water. Fuel
for hospital generators still remains blocked.
5. Why can’t Biden even persuade Israel to let 600 desperate Americans out of the Gaza firestorm?
6.
Why isn’t the mass media making a bigger issue out of Israel’s
long-time practices of blocking journalists from entering Gaza,
including European, American and Israeli journalists? The only
television crews left are Gazan-residing Al Jazeera reporters. Israeli
bombs have already killed 26 journalists in the Gaza Strip since October
7th. Is Israel targeting journalists’ families? The Gaza
bureau chief of Al Jazeera, Wael Al-Dahdouh’s family was killed in an
Israeli airstrike on Wednesday.
7. Why isn’t the mainstream U.S.
media giving adequate space and voice to groups advocating a ceasefire
and humanitarian aid? The message of Israeli peace groups’ peaceful
solutions are drowned out by the media’s addiction to interviews with
military tacticians. Much time and space are being given to hawks
pushing for a war that could flash outside of Gaza big time. Shouldn’t
groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the Arab-American Institute,
Veterans for Peace and associations of clergy have their views and
activities reported?
As time passes,( how long ago Oct. 7 was), the story is more and more about Israeli excesses. Excesses which keep happening and which American tank shells will facilitate. What American interest in prolonging the Israeli actions has Biden or members of Congress articulated? When will Hamas be declared dead and defeated? When the last Gazan is killed, or sooner? What will trigger an end, what measure exists to say, enough, the declared goal of ending Hamas has happened?
If you have no defined endpoint, is there any assurance of an end? Smotrich seems to not want one. Settlements, not an end, he is on record. Settlements over time. With that, there is no end.
FURTHER: What are the current "correct" questions to ask?
search = displacing gazans from gaza into neighboring nations
search = Smotrich settlements displacing gazans from gaza into neighboring nations
