Biden advisor ridiculed for saying he supports withholding arms to Israel

Former national security advisor Jake Sullivan linked any embargo to a ceasefire and not Gaza's famine or death toll

US national security advisor Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily press briefing in the Brady press briefing room of the White House in Washington, DC, on 13 January 2025 (Roberto Schmidt/AFP)

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Former US national security advisor Jake Sullivan was skewered as a hypocrite on Thursday after an interview aired of him saying he would support Congress voting to withhold military aid to Israel over its decision to abandon a Gaza ceasefire with Hamas in March.

“The situation as it stands today, following the breakdown of the ceasefire in March, means that a vote to withhold weapons from Israel is a totally incredible position. That is a position I would support,” Sullivan told a podcast hosted by The Bulwark media.

Sullivan was lambasted on social media for his statement.

“This has almost been too obvious to say, but Jake Sullivan is one of the original architects and cheerleaders for Israel's genocide and personally intervened to make sure the US is sending more bombs,” one commentator on X wrote.

Sullivan was Biden’s National Security Council advisor and deeply involved in efforts to arm Israel after it assaulted Gaza following the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel.

During his time at the White House, Sullivan lobbied Democratic members of Congress against voting to block arms transfers throughout the war. Human rights experts and high-profile academics have labelled Israel’s war a genocide against Palestinians. Sullivan did not link a blockade of arms transfers to Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

“Jake Sullivan does not deserve an ounce of credit for saying this after he spent his time in power arming, enabling and defending the genocide in Gaza,” another commentator said on X.

“The continuing slaughter today was made possible by Jake and his boss, Biden. Is he hoping Americans don’t have object permanence?”

Sullivan’s record on calling shots in the Middle East has not aged well since he left office.

For months, he insisted that the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was the “massive obstacle” to a ceasefire. But Sinwar was killed in Gaza in October 2024, and the war has continued to rage without him.

Almost a year after his death, Israel is preparing to assault Gaza City.

Sullivan is already remembered for his now infamous speech at the Atlantic Festival on 29 September 2023, when he boasted that under the Biden administration, the Middle East “is quieter today than it has been in two decades”.

'I lost my family, my home, my sight': Israel blinds thousands in Gaza

A week later, the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel sparked a region-wide conflict that included fighting in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon. Israel and Iran engaged in unprecedented direct fighting, and the US, under the Trump administration, bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Meanwhile, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has raged on with nearly unconditional US backing, first by the Biden administration and then the Trump administration. At least 62,966 Palestinians, mainly women and children, have been killed by Israel, according to Palestinian health officials.

Although Sullivan is no longer in public office, several commentators noted the irony of his calling for lawmakers to back an arms embargo on Israel while his wife, Maggie Goodlander, has remained relatively quiet on the topic. She is a Democratic congresswoman for the state of New Hampshire.

In a statement posted on her website on 22 August, Goodlander called for humanitarian aid to surge into Gaza, but she did not call for an arms embargo against Israel or offer any new legislation on the matter.

Israel's genocide in Gaza

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