A replacement in Congress, with progressive Democrats expressing fear about using U. S. taxpayers’ cash to violate Palestinian rights, makes it highly likely that any long-term U. S. arms sales to Israel will come under scrutiny.
“For decades, the United States has sold billions of dollars in weapons to Israel without even asking them to respect Palestinian human rights,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN. Y. , said last week. after pushing to block an arms sale to Israel for $735 million. “By doing so, we have contributed to the death, displacement and disenfranement of millions of people. “
President Joe Biden has tried to stife the in his own party.
“There is no replacement in my compromise arrangement . . . with israel’s security. Period,” Biden said as the ceasefire went into effect, ending the 11-day standoff between Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamic organization that controls Gaza. at least 248 Palestinians and 12 Israelis.
Consequence: from the Israeli-Hamas struggle: the Palestinian two-state solution?
Here are some key facts about U. S. aid to Israel and why it has a flashpoint:
U. S. military aid to Israel is in at least 3 forms: scale, lack of transparency and long-term commitment, says Lauren Woods, who discusses U. S. security assistance at the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based research agency.
The explanation for America’s inordinate commitment to Israel’s security is simple, supporters say: It is America’s closest best friend in the Middle East and democracy in the region.
But for the first 14 years of Israel’s existence, the United States refused to provide military assistance to Israel, said David Makovsky, a member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which began replacing israel in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and in the United States. States dramatically increased their military aid after Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979.
Who’s Who: The Key to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
American investment by the Israeli military is now a cornerstone of US foreign policy, and enjoys a wide bipartisan margin in Congress and the White House.
The aid “promotes America’s national security interests in a very complicated region,” 329 House members wrote in a letter in April that protected the request for $3. 8 billion in military aid to Israel for fiscal year 2022.
Biden and others point out that Israel faces direct threats from its neighbors. Hamas, which the U. S. considers a terrorist, Array rejects Israel’s right to exist, as do Iran and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah.
“The enemies of Israel and the enemies of the United States have been very similar,” Makovsky said.
Biden’s leadership has pledged approximately $250 million in economic and progress assistance to the Palestinians and recently announced more aid for the recovery of Gaza, which has suffered the destruction caused by the conflict.
Trump’s investment: Biden to reopen U. S. consulate in Jerusalem in bid to restore ties with Palestinians
The United States has provided Israel with a total of $146 billion in bilateral aid and missile defense investment in 2020, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which provides nonpartisan studies to lawmakers. aid since World War II (the other main beneficiaries are Egypt and Afghanistan).
The U. S. is making 10-year security investment commitments to Israel, which it’s doing for any other country, Woods says.
Under the existing agreement, the United States agreed to grant Israel approximately $3. 8 billion in military aid according to the year. The vast majority of this amount, $3. 3 billion, is spent on funding grants from the U. S. foreign military. U. S. That Israel can use to acquire weapons, services and training.
The United States provides Israel with an additional $500 million each year in missile defense components as a component of the agreement, which was signed in 2016 under the Obama administration and covers fiscal year 2019 to 2028.
The deal gave Israel “unprecedented for some of the world’s most complex military equipment, adding the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter,” the Obama White House boasted in 2016.
In fact, decades of such assistance have helped “transform the Israeli armed forces into one of the world’s technologically highest armies,” the CRS report says. “U. S. military assistance has also helped Israel build its national defense industry, which is now among the world’s top arms exporters. “
U. S. Role: Biden has yet to oppose many of Trump’s pro-Israel policies, which he “destroys”
Ocasio-Cortez is part of a developing minority in Congress who wonder that U. S. taxpayers’ money is being used to exacerbate Palestinian suffering and consolidate Israel’s profession of Palestinian territory.
She and others say the U. S. imposes situations on military assistance, such as freezing the expansion of Israeli settlements and respecting the basic human rights of Palestinians.
“Our government is a direct accomplice to the human rights atrocities inflicted through the Israeli military on Palestinians, and it is our job as members of Congress to ensure that we avoid reversing those abuses,” said Rep. Cori Bush, a St. Democrats. Louis said in joining Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders and others seeking to block the sale of $735 million. Array, an effort that Sanders confirms has stalled.
Woods said the U. S. does not force Israel to track where U. S. weapons are headed, making it “impossible” to know whether they have been used in human rights violations or other abuses.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Hamas had committed a “clear violation” of foreign law by attacking Israeli citizens and warned that Israel may also have committed war crimes by attacking densely populated spaces that have caused many civilian casualties. the United Nations of prejudice.
This is not the first time critics have questioned the possible misuse of U. S. -provided military apparatus to Israel. Previous examples involved the sale of bulldozers and other appliances that may have been used to destroy Palestinian homes, according to the CRS report.
Biden recently promised Israel to rebuild its Iron Dome missile defense system, noting that it “has stored the lives of countless Israeli citizens, both Arab and Jewish. “
The United States has already given Israel $1. 6 billion for Iron Dome batteries, interceptors and production costs, according to the CRS report, but Biden’s commitment that the White House may request more investments from Congress for interceptors that were used in the recent conflict.
Biden’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, boasted that he had obtained an additional $250 million from Congress in 2014 after a past standoff between Israel and Hamas. Blinken said he received congressional approval for the cash just 3 days after Israel’s ambassador called him late a night late to the White House.
It may not be that simple this time.
In general, management will have to report to Congress before concluding sales of the primary military overseas. The White House can proceed with the sale unless Congress passes a law prohibiting or modifying the proposed deal.
Under the Trump administration, lawmakers have tried to block an arms sale to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, but President Donald Trump vetoed the measures, saying they would “weaken America’s global competitiveness and damage the relations we have with our allies and partners. “”
Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster and leader of a pro-Israel advocacy group, said he expects the debate over U. S. military aid to Israel to infiltrate and divide the party, progressives losing all votes in Congress, across lopsided margins.
“There’s one with a very large number of Democrats and one with a very small number of Democrats,” Mellman said.
Ilan Goldenberg, who worked on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations at the State Department under the Obama administration, said seeking to condition U. S. security aid is probably not an effective strategy anyway.
“We have long used security aid as leverage with other countries,” he said at a May 25 briefing through the Israeli Political Forum, which advocates a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“It doesn’t work,” he says. Countries do not give up their basic political or security interests “for a few billion dollars. “
But Woods says there’s an explanation for why cutting U. S. military aid to Israel: It opposes U. S. diplomatic goals in the region.
“The U. S. is offering a lot of cash to rebuild Gaza right now,” he said. “On the other hand, we are supplying weapons to destroy it. “
Stories like this are imaginable thanks to our subscribers like you. Your help will allow us to continue producing quality journalism.
Stay informed by subscribing to one of our newsletters.