Republicans have been falsely accusing President Biden of "funding Hamas's attack on Israel through Iran" all weekend, because they are suddenly very concerned with the security of the Jewish state. Secretary of State Tony Blinken called bullshit:
In response to this weekend's expansive attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to "destroy Hamas" and signaled that the country's forces will soon go on the offensive as the IDF evacuates civilians living near the border with Gaza.
Blinken said Sunday that the U.S. would stand behind Israel as it did whatever necessary to ensure "this doesn't repeat itself."
"I don't want to get ahead of what Israel may or may not do when it comes to Gaza," he said when asked whether Israel could control the situation if it invaded. "No country should be expected to live with the fear, the possibility and now the actuality of terrorists crossing a border, coming into people's homes, gunning them down in the street, dragging them across the border and making hostages of them. That is intolerable for any democracy. It's intolerable for Israel."
Republicans have criticized the Biden administration approach toward Iran, Hamas' largest sponsor, contending that the White House in effect enabled the attack and emboldened the extremists by facilitating Iran's access to sanctioned finances for humanitarian expenditures as part of a separate deal to free American detainees.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a statement that the money transfer was a sign of "appeasement." Other critics said it would free up Iran to better financially support Hamas.
Blinken, on "This Week," pushed back.
"There's a long relationship between Iran and Hamas. In fact, Hamas wouldn't be Hamas without the support that it's gotten over many years from Iran. We haven't yet seen direct evidence that Iran was behind this particular attack or involved," he said.
"It's unfortunate that some are, in effect, saying things that may be motivated by politics at a time when so many lives have been lost and Israel remains under attack," he continued, noting the funds are held in a restricted account monitored by the U.S. Treasury Department.
"By the way, not a single dollar from that account has actually been spent to date," Blinken asserted, adding, "So, some who are advancing this false narrative -- they're either misinformed or they're misinforming. And either way, it's wrong."
A doctored White House press release posted online falsely claimed that the Biden administration had authorized $8 billion in emergency aid to Israel on Saturday. The fact that it was faked didn't stop it from being posted across the internet and rising to the top of Google search results.
The faked document is one of the most far-reaching instances of misinformation to come out of the most recent violent conflict between Hamas and Israel, fooling several online publications into writing full articles about the fake news, which are still surfacing prominently in online search results.
The faked document appears to be an edited version of President Joe Biden's July memo announcing $400 million in aid to Ukraine. Despite images of the faked document appearing on social media, it was never published on the White House website or in the government's Federal Register of presidential documents.
The faked document first started appearing on social media accounts Saturday morning. Around noon on Saturday, a collection of verified accounts on X, formerly Twitter, began disseminating the fake release. Verified accounts are eligible for monetization on the platform.
Posts sharing the faked document and its claims, many of which are still up, have accrued hundreds of thousands of views on the platform.
Several of the posts on X now have "community notes" attached to them clarifying that the document is faked, but many more posts that are still up have no such clarification.
Under Elon Musk's ownership, Twitter has scaled back its operations which would have attempted to moderate misinformation on the platform.
As the fake release spread on X, it was reposted to other social media websites like TikTok, but on a much smaller scale. X did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It's all very, very bonkers, but of course the Netanyahu administration hates President Biden. Of course, this is convenient for Israel here.
Expect a lot more of this.
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