Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz pulled no punches while questioning Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a heated Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday.
The tense clash between the two began with Cruz blasting the Biden administration's "worst foreign policy disaster of modern times," referencing its handling of Iran and the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and culminated with the senator accusing the White House of indirectly funding the attack.
"Mr. Secretary, you have presided over the worst foreign policy disaster of modern times," Cruz began. "When Joe Biden became president, he inherited peace and prosperity in the world. We now have two simultaneous wars waging: the worst war in Europe since World War II, and the worst war in the Middle East in 50 years. Both, I believe, were caused by this administration's consistent weakness."
"Your foreign policy is precisely backwards from what a rational American foreign policy should be to our friends and allies. This administration has consistently undermined, weakened and attacked them," he added. "And to our enemies, this administration has shown constant appeasement and indeed has flowed billions of dollars to the enemies of America who want to kill us."
The two clashed over the Biden administration's effort to prevent Israel from attacking Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip, as part of its efforts to root out Hamas terrorists from among the Palestinians, with Cruz demanding to know whether they offered Israel intelligence on the terrorists if they would hold off attacking.
Blinken denied any such action was taken and attempted to expand on what he said was President Biden's support for Israel, but Cruz stopped him, saying he wasn't interested in a "campaign speech."
Cruz continued to press him, but Blinken called the notion "misleading and wrong," and said the U.S. government shares intelligence if it's available.
Cruz then accused Blinken and the State Department of repeatedly telling Israel "not to kill" Hamas terrorists, citing a tweet he said the department later deleted immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, calling on Israel "not to engage in military retaliation."
"Senator, I was in Israel five days after Oct. 7. I've been there seven times since. No one, starting with President Biden, has done more to make sure they have what they need to defend themselves from Hamas, to deal with the threat," Blinken said, as Cruz pushed back.
"That is simply wrong. … That is ludicrous," Cruz said, asking if the administration had cut off sending weapons to Israel.
Blinken denied the administration had cut off any weapons supplies, but Cruz began to press him on funding for Iran.
Cruz noted that Iran's oil production had increased since Biden had taken office, and that the nation had developed more "ghost" ships to circumvent the sanctions against it and ship the oil.
"This administration desperately wants a new Iran deal. You have been showering cash on Iran from day one," Cruz said, referencing what he said was the administration's "refusal to enforce oil sanctions."
"In a very real sense, this administration, you and President Biden funded the Oct. 7 attacks by flowing $100 billion to a homicidal, genocidal regime that funded those attacks," he added.
Blinken quickly hit back, calling Cruz's statement "profoundly wrong" and "disgraceful," to which the latter responded, "Why?"
"We have gone at Iran repeatedly with more than 600 sanctions applied against them," Blinken said.
"Why are they selling 10 million barrels a day compared to 300,000?" Cruz responded.
Blinken argued Iran was working hard to get around the sanctions, and that the administration was continuing to "go at them" every day despite the country being "determined" to sell more oil.
"They weren't determined when Trump was president," Cruz said.
| More from the same hearing: |
[IsraelTimes] US envoy Lew and Herzog suggest possibility of Israel-Saudi ties be seriously considered; in testimony to Congress, secretary of state attacked from both sides over Israel policy
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken
...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that Israel might not be willing to embrace a normalization deal with Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat Frational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...if it means agreeing to clear progress toward a Paleostinian state.
"The Saudis demand a ceasefire in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
and a pathway to a Paleostinian state, and it may well be that Israel isn’t able, willing to proceed down this pathway," Blinken said in testimony before Congress.
"It must decide if it wants to take advantage of this opportunity to achieve something sought from its founding," he added.
Blinken faced criticism from the right and left during the session, with Republicans accusing the administration of failing Israel and Democrats
...every time you hear the phrase
white people,
white supremacy,
whiteanything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word
(Thomas) Nastyto the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects...
saying it’s doing too little to help civilians in Gaza.
Furious protesters interrupted Blinken as he began his testimony before the Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There were shouts that he has "blood on his hands," and Blinken flinched from a protester who approached him from behind waving a sign that said "criminal" before security officers carried her out of the room.
Earlier on Tuesday, US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew reiterated that forging formal Israeli-Saudi relations as part of an emerging trilateral deal involving Washington would require a calming of the Gaza war and a discussion of prospects for Paleostinian governance.
"There’s going to have to be some period of quiet, I think, in Gaza, and there’s going to have to be a conversation about how do you deal with the question of the future of Paleostinian governance," Lew said.
"My view is that strategic benefit is worth taking the risk of getting into that conversation about. But that’s a decision that the government of Israel will have to make and the people of Israel will have to make," he told a conference hosted by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) think-tank.
The United States on Monday described as "near-final" a bilateral defense pact with Saudi Arabia. Once completed, it would be part of a broad deal presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to decide whether to make concessions — including committing to paving the way for a future Paleostinian state — to secure a normalization of ties with Riyadh.
Netanyahu had long promoted such a diplomatic prize, and in the months prior to Hamas
..always the voice of sweet reason...
’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel, was said to have been overseeing intensified efforts to clinch closer military and intelligence ties with Riyadh.
But, seven months into a war with Hamas
"Of course, we want to expand the circle of peace. We haven’t been shy about this," Israeli government spokesperson Tal Heinrich said. "[But] any peace initiative that jeopardizes Israel’s security is not something that we see as real peace."