During his State of the Union address to the country Thursday night, President Joe Biden will reportedly announce he's sending the U.S. military to the Gaza Strip. Their mission will be to build an emergency port to distribute humanitarian aid.
But given Hamas has been stealing aid already being brought into the Gaza Strip by Israel, Jordan and other governments, the move is receiving backlash.
“President Biden’s plan to use Americans’ hard-earned money to build a port in Gaza will only fast-track U.S. taxpayer-funded aid into the hands of terrorists such as Hamas and put U.S. servicemembers' lives at risk. Just this morning, I met with the USAID Inspector General who cautioned any aid going to Gaza or the West Bank has a high-risk for potential diversion and misuse of U.S. funded assistance," House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer released in a statement.
"The House Oversight Committee has been sounding the alarm about U.S. aid to Gaza falling into the hands of terror groups, but it is falling on deaf ears with President Biden and his administration. The fact that this announcement will come during tonight’s State of the Union address says it all: President Biden cares more about appeasing the radical left then helping our ally Israel and protecting U.S. taxpayer dollars," he continued.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman is calling the move a" cheap political trick."
It is reported that Biden will announce tonight at SOTU that the US will “build a port” in Gaza. Sounds like a cheap political trick to me and maybe worse.
— David M Friedman (@DavidM_Friedman) March 7, 2024
Remember that billions of dollars of aid has come into Gaza over the past 15 years and almost all of it was used to build…
During a White House briefing last week, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby couldn't definitively say Hamas wouldn't be able to steal aid being dropped by the U.S. military from the air.
"The White House is truly flailing. We can't secure our own border, but we can build a port in Gaza. Our military can't be used to actually defend the United States, restore deterrence against our enemies, enforce sanctions, or rescue American hostages -- but it can be put to work building a port in Gaza," Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow Richard Goldberg wrote on X. "Congress needs to see a detailed plan of how this is going to work, how much it will cost, how force protection will be assured, who will be operating the port, how deliveries will work, how aid diversion will be prevented, etc. It all sounds rather half-baked and unnecessary -- more virtue signaling instead of governing -- but let's demand the details from the White House and DOD. Israel has made it clear it has zero limits on aid coming into Gaza. Very sad the White House resorts to this for its base politics."
Biden's re-election campaign is catering to pro-Hamas Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the leader of the uncommitted voting movement in Michigan -- a state the president has to win in order to earn a second White House term.