Washington DC

24 July 2023; MEMO: Two former US ambassadors to Israel have called for an end to Washington's aid to the occupation state. Speaking to New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, one of the more influential in liberal circles, former ambassadors Dan Kurtzer and Martin Indyk said that it is time to end the $3.8 billion given every year to Israel because it longer serves US interests.

19 July 2023; MEMO: US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on Tuesday signed a new national security waiver letting Iraq pay Iran for electricity that, for the first time, allows such payments to go to accounts at non-Iraqi banks, a US official told Reuters.

16 July 2023; MEMO: The United States is sending F-16 fighter jets to the Gulf this weekend to reinforce its presence in the region amid an increase in Iranian harassment of oil tankers.

According to the Associated Press, an anonymous official told Pentagon reporters yesterday that Washington will deploy an unspecified number of F-16 jets to the Gulf region in an effort to give support to the A-10 attack aircraft that have patrolled the area over the past week and a half.

13 July 2023; MEMO: A group of pro-Israel Republican US senators have accused President Joe Biden of engaging in "an anti-Semitic boycott of Israel" and threatened to block any nomination put forward by the White House if it does not reverse its policy over the occupation state.

13 July 2023; MEMO: Democratic US lawmaker, Ilhan Omar, has announced she will not be attending Israeli President Isaac Herzog's address to a joint session of Congress, condemning the state's 2019 decision banning her and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib from entering Israel.

12 July 2023; MEMO: US President Joe Biden has told CNN that the Palestinian Authority has "lost its credibility." Biden made the claim earlier this week.

"I think that the fact [is] that the Palestinian Authority has lost its credibility," he said, making clear that this assessment had nothing to do with Israel, but is related to the nature of the PA itself. "It has created a vacuum for extremism… among the Palestinians," he added.

10 July 2023; MEMO: An increasing number of countries are repatriating gold reserves as protection against the sort of sanctions imposed by the West on Russia, according to an Invesco survey of Central Bank and sovereign wealth funds published on Monday, Reuters reports.

The financial market rout last year caused widespread losses for sovereign money managers who are "fundamentally" rethinking their strategies on the belief that higher inflation and geopolitical tensions are here to stay.

01 July 2023; AA: The US is contemplating the possibility of supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine, said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said on Friday.

"The Ukrainians have asked for it, other European countries have provided some of that, the Russians are using it," said Milley in his remarks at National Press Club. "There’s a decision-making process ongoing".

He said no final decision has been made.

30 June 2023; MEMO: The US State Department, on Thursday, condemned the burning of a copy of the Quran in Sweden but said it demonstrates, by the issue of a permit, the support for freedom of expression, Anadolu Agency reports.

State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said at his press briefing that the US is "deeply concerned by the act," but supports freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly as elements of democracy.

26 June 2023; MEMO: The United States informed Israel yesterday it will halt all funding towards scientific and technological research cooperation projects taking place in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Syrian Golan Heights.

The decision reverses a policy imposed by the Trump administration in 2020 that enabled US taxpayer funding to be used for science and technology projects in the settlements for the first time since 1967.