The Onion couldn’t have dreamed up a more ironic headline than this one: Harris pledges to send up to $157 million for humanitarian relief in Lebanon.
On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the Biden-Harris administration will provide millions of dollars in new funding to help people affected by ongoing conflicts in Lebanon.
This funding aims to meet the new and ongoing needs of displaced and refugee populations in Lebanon and their host communities. The support will also help those fleeing to nearby Syria.
But people in North Carolina and Georgia most likely didn’t get to celebrate the Biden administration’s decision to favor Lebanon over their own needs. After all, they still lack electricity, cell phone service, and basic needs such as food and water. Chances are, without the internet, they probably didn’t even hear the good news.
On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris said that people in Lebanon are facing a worsening humanitarian crisis. She expressed concern about the safety and well-being of civilians struggling there and pledged to keep working to support them. To help, the U.S. will provide millions of dollars to Lebanon for essential needs like food, shelter, water, protection, and sanitation, especially for those displaced by the recent conflict. This new support brings total U.S. aid to Lebanon over the past year to more than $385 million.
Meanwhile, American citizens struggling to survive in areas devasted by Hurricane Helene have been given one-time payments of $750 and told that FEMA is out of money to help them.
For Harris, sending funds to a terrorist state is shameless bait to catch those pesky Dearborn, Michigan voters. Michigan has over 300,000 residents of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Still, during nearly two dozen interviews from the NYT over the weekend, only two said they planned to vote for Harris.
Michigan also has a sizeable Jewish community, historically one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal groups. But Harris is making no headway with them, and it’s time to pick a winning side. Standing with terrorists will ultimately squeeze a few more votes into the Harris campaign.
Unfortunately, Americans on the battered East Coast are not on the winning side. Standing with terrorists will ultimately squeeze a few more votes into the Harris campaign.
Senator Tom Cotton from Arkansas acknowledged that the Lebanese people have suffered greatly due to Iran. He questioned why the U.S. is giving $157 million to a struggling country controlled by Iranian-backed terrorists, suggesting that the Iranian leaders should fix their own problems.
Representative Brian Mast from Florida criticized the Biden administration for sending $157 million to Lebanon while only providing $100 million to communities in North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene. He argued that this shows their priorities are not focused on America first.
David Friedman, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, stated that Hezbollah has controlled the Lebanese people for over 20 years. He added that the Biden administration’s funding for Iran over the past three years has only made Hezbollah stronger and better armed. Yet, Friedman says, they continue to send more money to Lebanon.
Even progressives are concerned about the Biden administration’s decision to send more money to Lebanon. Left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker expressed that he finds it upsetting how American leaders view Israel’s violent actions “as if they were natural disasters.” He pointed out that the U.S. supplies Israel with bombs, which contribute to the worsening humanitarian crisis.
Ben Norton, the editor of Geopolitical Economy Report, wrote that the Biden-Harris administration is giving Israel billions of dollars in weapons to harm civilians in Lebanon. He claimed that Biden and Harris fully support Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. He compared the U.S. government to a serial killer who gives “humanitarian aid to an orphan after killing their family.”
This poorly-timed announcement may buy Harris a handful of votes in Dearborn, Michigan, but it may have cost her votes in critical swing states like North Carolina and Georgia. Those people are far too selfish about their own survival to support the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon.