Biden Withholds $130 Million in Military Aid to Egypt, after Approving $2.5 Billion Weapons Sale,
(Washington D.C, January 28, 2021) – The Biden administration announced that it would withhold $130 million in military aid conditioned on Egypt improving its human rights record only three days after it approved a $2.5 billion weapons sale without any such conditions.
“Denying the Sisi government a paltry $130 million is a bit of a crude shell game after the Biden administration’s approval of $2.5 billion in weapons sales earlier this week,” said John Hursh, Program Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). “That the Egyptian government could not meet even the watered-down human rights conditions to release 16 political prisoners is just one reason for why the U.S. government has no business sending one cent of weapons to its brutal dictatorship.”
In a January 17, 2022 article on the English-language website Fanack.com, Kuwaiti writer and poet Nejoud Al-Yagout notes that, when, in December 2021, the U.S. embassy in Kuwait wished the local Jews a happy Hanukkah, many Kuwaitis responded with fury. They used the incident not just to troll the ambassador, but to express hatred for any and all Jews. Al-Yagout wonders where “this cringe-worthy fear” towards Jews comes from, and why Kuwaitis are not ashamed of it, given that their country prides itself on tolerance and coexistance. She notes that this antagonism has caused most of Kuwait’s Jews to emigrate, and the few who remain to hide their identity, which, she says, is a great loss for the country.
Israelis demonstrate outside the court as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial resumes in occupied east Jerusalem, on February 8, 2021. (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP)[/caption]
