Huckabee says there's ‘no break' between US and Israel following Trump Gaza comments
07/29/2025 01:31 PM EDT
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee pushed back on the idea that President Donald Trump has broken with Israel's government in calling out the humanitarian crisis in Gaza on Tuesday, adding that he remains close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
'Let me assure you that there is no break between the prime minister of Israel and the president,' Huckabee said in a Tuesday interview with Fox News. 'Their relationship, I think, [is] stronger than it's ever been, and I think the relationship between the U.S. and Israel is as strong as it's ever been.'
The comments come after Trump said Monday that there is 'real starvation' in Gaza, contradicting Netanyahu's denial of a hunger crisis in the war-torn region. A United Nations-backed report warned this week that a 'worst-case scenario of famine' is playing out in Gaza.
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Boston Globe
9 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Gaza hunger presents Trump with moral test familiar to past presidents
'I mean, some of those kids are -- that's real starvation stuff,' Trump said in Scotland on Monday. 'I see it, and you can't fake it. So we're going to be even more involved.' It was unclear what Trump meant by getting 'more involved.' Days earlier, he had withdrawn his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, from talks between Israel and Hamas in pursuit of a ceasefire to end the war in Gaza. Advertisement But Witkoff will now travel to Israel on Thursday to discuss Gaza, and Israeli news outlets reported that he might even visit a food distribution center in the territory. Witkoff's change of plans comes as aid groups say hunger in Gaza is reaching crisis levels. One United Nations-affiliated group said in a report this week that a 'worst-case' famine scenario is unfolding, and Gaza health officials say that dozens of Palestinians, including children, have died of starvation in recent weeks. Those grim facts have been driven home by gut-wrenching images of skeletal toddlers and people fighting for food. Advertisement Israeli officials reject responsibility for food shortages in Gaza, which they say are exaggerated and caused by Hamas. 'There is no policy of starvation in Gaza, and there is no starvation in Gaza,' Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Hamas 'robs, steals this humanitarian aid and then accuses Israel of not supplying it,' he added. But Hamas denies that, and Israeli military officials privately say they have found no evidence that Hamas systematically steals aid. Such protests have not defused global anger. France announced this week that it would recognize an independent Palestinian state at the United Nations in September, and Britain said it would follow suit if Israel did not agree to a ceasefire with Hamas. And in Washington this week, one of Trump's fiercest Republican allies in Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, condemned Israel's actions in Gaza as 'genocide.' Trump has few good options. The United States supplies Israel, its close partner, with billions in annual military aid. Even if Hamas is the main obstacle to aid delivery, Trump lacks influence over the militant group. His only real hope is to insist that Israel, which controls Gaza's borders, does more to clear roads and protect aid convoys. And a long-term solution may require leveraging American aid to force Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire on terms short of his longtime demands. Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the quandary is a familiar one for U.S. presidents. 'President Trump's excuse-making over Gaza resonates with a long line of presidents who were pressured to address humanitarian catastrophes,' Wertheim said. Advertisement That pressure comes from a sense of moral duty in the country's DNA, dating as far back as John Winthrop's 1630 'City on a Hill' sermon, in which he told Puritan Massachusetts colonists that 'the eyes of all people are upon us.' As the United States grew in power and wealth, so did its sense of obligation to people in need everywhere. When President Herbert Hoover, a free-market Republican, ordered aid to famine-stricken Soviet Russia in 1921, he declared: 'Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!' Cold War competition for global influence with the Soviet Union reinforced the instinct, on strategic grounds. Many conservatives argue that America is not a charity, and should help people abroad only when it advances the national interest. Trump has made that argument explicit in his 'America first' foreign policy, his deep cuts to foreign aid spending and his dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Stephen Pomper, the chief of policy at the International Crisis Group, noted that a president who preaches an 'America first' foreign policy has undermined an international system built over decades to prevent foreign atrocities. The United States, he said, 'looks increasingly like it rejects or is indifferent to the founding principles of the order that it helped create.' Still, the crisis in Gaza has echoes of past humanitarian crises that left presidents wringing their hands over how to respond. President Bill Clinton took office in 1993 as a champion of human rights and international institutions. But when machete-wielding Hutu militias started to slaughter ethnic Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994, he rejected calls for U.S. action. Scarred by the deaths of 18 American soldiers on a peacekeeping mission in Somalia, Clinton feared that even modest steps could escalate dangerously. Unchecked, Hutu killers carried out the genocide of an estimated 800,000 Tutsi. Clinton later said he regretted not doing more to stop it. Advertisement Clinton also hesitated as Serbian forces slaughtered civilians in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-1990s, rebuffing direct pleas from the likes of Elie Wiesel by saying the problem did not warrant risking American lives. The 1995 massacre of 8,000 men and boys at a U.N.-declared 'safe area' in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica finally moved Clinton to act. A U.S.-led bombing campaign against Serbian forces led to a peace deal credited with stabilizing the region. Stopping mass killings in the Darfur region of Sudan in the early 2000s became a campaign for activists and celebrities, including Angelina Jolie and George Clooney. But even after the State Department formally declared the atrocities there a 'genocide' in 2004, President George W. Bush refused calls to deploy U.S. troops to stop it. He cited, among other things, concern about intervening 'in another Muslim country' at the time of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the time Barack Obama became president, activists and scholars -- fueled by the American failure in Rwanda -- had developed new legal theories to support cross-border intervention to protect victims of atrocities. Among them was Samantha Power, an influential national security aide to Obama, who helped engineer a 2011 presidential directive on the subject. 'Preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States,' it declared. Obama put that idea into practice in 2011, when he ordered airstrikes in Libya against government forces preparing to crush a rebellion in the city of Benghazi. Obama said he acted to avert 'a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world.' Advertisement But that supposedly limited intervention expanded into a monthslong NATO bombing campaign, and Libya collapsed into violent anarchy, leaving Obama regretting the experience. So when he was pressured again to intervene in Syria's civil war against the country's brutal regime, he rejected pleas for airstrikes from top officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry. Obama did, however, order limited airstrikes in Syria in 2014 against Islamic State group fighters, in part to save thousands of Yazidi people trapped on a mountain in Iraq and at risk of genocidal massacre. 'Earlier this week, one Iraqi cried that there is no one coming to help,' Obama said in an address to the nation. 'Well, today America is coming to help.' Gaza presents Trump with an especially difficult case, as it did for President Joe Biden. Biden faced withering questions about his support for Israel's military campaign, and was shouted down at public events by protesters accusing him of complicity in 'genocide.' But while Biden often harangued Netanyahu to allow more aid into Gaza -- usually with limited and temporary results -- he never risked a full break with the prime minister over the matter. One reason, Biden officials say, was intelligence showing that Hamas responded to signs of a potential split between the United States and Israel by hardening its negotiation position in ceasefire talks. Biden felt enough of a responsibility -- and also perhaps political vulnerability -- that he resorted to dramatic displays of support for hungry Palestinians, sending military planes to airdrop supplies and ordering the construction of a $230 million pier to allow aid delivery by sea. Critics dismissed both measures as made-for-TV substitutes for putting decisive pressure on Netanyahu. Advertisement Ultimately, Wertheim said, America's real problem in Gaza is itself. 'It's not that other parties are engaged in atrocities and the question is whether the United States will use its righteous power to stop,' he said. 'In this case, the issue is that the United States is complicit in Israel's conduct.' This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Jesse Watters' New Trump-Themed Rule For Men Has Everyone Making The Same Damning Point
Fox News' Jesse Watters — the apparent self-appointed arbiter of what it takes to be a 'real man' — on Wednesday introduced something new to the mix. And it involved President Donald Trump. While mocking Sen. Corey Booker's (D-N.J.) impassioned speech on the Senate floor earlier this week, Watters declared: 'Rules for men. Control your emotions. You never see Trump lose his cool. Even when they arrested him and put him on trial.' Watch here: Watters: Rules for men, control your emotions. You never see trump lose his cool. Even when they arrested him — Acyn (@Acyn) July 31, 2025 The comment sparked mockery online. Critics pointed out numerous moments when Trump has appeared to lose his temper — on social media, in interviews and during public events. Watters' ever-growing list of things 'real men' allegedly shouldn't do already includes waving with both hands, sipping through straws, eating soup in public and even wishing other men a happy birthday. Trump is the most thin-skinned man-baby orange bronzer ever stuck to. What is Watters talking about? — Milenka~ (@MilenaAmit) July 31, 2025 That's funny, from a spokesperson of a movement entirely built on emotional appeals. There's not a single issue where, if you get the facts straight the MAGA position is not based on what they feel is right. — Jens Johansson (@jejebob77) July 31, 2025 Trump has whiny meltdowns on a daily/hourly basis. — Infinite Jest (@infinitejest) July 31, 2025 'Trump never loses his cool?' @JesseBWatters must've missed the all-caps meltdowns, the table-pounding depositions, and the tantrums over toilets. If that's stoicism, I'm the Queen of England. — Chetter 📢🗽⚖💙 Beacon for Democracy (@ChetterHub) July 31, 2025 @JesseBWatters No, what @CoryBooker did was a passioned speech, what you and @GOP do is whine like little brats that didn't get their mom and dad's attention. After all, Trump sues everyone that hurts his feelings. — Kathy Harris (@deguin77) July 31, 2025 You mean the man that just lashed out at Kaitlan Collins this afternoon? — nightowlmike (@nightowlmike1) July 31, 2025 Does Jesse Watters think we have amnesia? — Ivonne Rovira (@IvonneRovira) July 31, 2025 Lmao! The guy that yelled at Zelensky in the Oval Office controls his emotions well? 😂 — One Woke Citizen (@onewokecitizen) July 31, 2025 Oh yeah, Trump never whines or complains about the world being against him. Never the victim. Sure. — BoserHoes (@BoserHoes) July 31, 2025 Except when he gets angry and calls things bullsh*tWhich is all the time — Justin @ (@AUJuzzy) July 31, 2025 Related... 'Oh, My God! Why Are You Like This?!?': Karoline Leavitt Blows Meyers' Mind In Spoof Presser Marjorie Taylor Greene Boasts She'd Win This Race In A Landslide But Is Sitting It Out Trump White House Puts 'Absolutely Disgusting' Spin On Viral TikTok Meme
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
Donald Trump Issues Threat To Canada Over 'Statehood of Palestine' Move
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump has said that Canada's support for a Palestinian state will make any trade deal between Washington and Ottawa "very hard." In a post on Truth Social, Trump referred to comments made by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that Canada is planning to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September. "Wow! Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine. That will make it very hard for us to make a Trade Deal with them. Oh' Canada!!!," Trump wrote. Carney's announcement follows United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said earlier this week that Britain will recognize a Palestinian state in September unless Israel meets certain conditions. Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognize the State of Palestine, becoming the first G7 nation to do so. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump speaking during the G7 summit in Canada in June. Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Donald Trump speaking during the G7 summit in Canada in is a developing story. More to follow.
