Senior Republican Close to Trump Criticizes Biden's Arms Holdup in Speech to Israeli Parliament

US President Joe Biden looks on as he speaks to the media, before departing the White House for Florida, in Washington, US, January 30, 2024. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden looks on as he speaks to the media, before departing the White House for Florida, in Washington, US, January 30, 2024. (Reuters)
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Senior Republican Close to Trump Criticizes Biden's Arms Holdup in Speech to Israeli Parliament

US President Joe Biden looks on as he speaks to the media, before departing the White House for Florida, in Washington, US, January 30, 2024. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden looks on as he speaks to the media, before departing the White House for Florida, in Washington, US, January 30, 2024. (Reuters)

Elise Stefanik, a House Republican leader seen as a candidate to be Donald Trump's running mate, delivered a speech before Israel's parliament on Sunday in which she criticized President Joe Biden's approach to the war in Gaza.

Stefanik, the fourth highest-ranked Republican in the House of Representatives, is the latest of several US politicians from both sides of the aisle to visit Israel since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack ignited the war in Gaza. But it's rare for such visitors to address Israel's parliament, known as the Knesset.

Speaking at a session dedicated to combatting antisemitism worldwide, Stefanik vowed to help with “crushing antisemitism at home and providing Israel what it needs when it needs it, without conditions.”

She was referring to Biden's decision to hold up the delivery of some 3,500 bombs of up to 2,000 pounds each, and his refusal to provide offensive weapons for a long-promised Israeli invasion of the southern city of Rafah. The administration fears such an operation would plunge Gaza into an even more severe humanitarian catastrophe.

“There is no excuse for an American president to block aid to Israel that was duly passed by the Congress, and there was no excuse to ease sanctions on Iran,” she said, The AP reported.

Stefanik, a representative from upstate New York and a strong supporter of Trump, is believed to be on the short list of his possible running mates.

In December, she grilled university presidents at a five-hour congressional hearing about antisemitism on campus. Two of the university presidents, from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, resigned soon after.

“Total victory is not just physical self-defense, but ideological self-defense,” Stefanik said during the session, referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's frequent claim that Israel must achieve “total victory” in the war against Hamas.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."