US Pauses Arms Shipments to Israel: Is This a Real Policy Change?

The Israeli operation in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza where more than a million displaced Palestinians live, may have finally forced the Biden administration to do something it has hesitated to do until now: interrupt an arms supply to Israel.

The administration has been reluctant to limit military aid to Israel in any way, despite federal law requiring it when members of a foreign military to which the US provides assistance commit gross human rights abuses – something that international organizations and individual countries have accused Israel. by. But this week, U.S. officials announced they had halted a shipment of thousands of bombs to Israel — the first known example of the U.S. withholding military aid since the war began.

“We will continue to do what is necessary to ensure that Israel has the means to defend itself, but that said, we are currently assessing some shipments of short-term security assistance in the context of the events in Rafah,” the US said Minister of Defence. Lloyd Austin said this during a Senate Defense Committee hearing on Wednesday.

The decision comes as the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 34,000 and a full-fledged famine has broken out in the north, while the rest of Gaza faces the threat of famine in the coming months. A ceasefire deal seemed within reach this week when Hamas announced that it had accepted a draft proposal negotiated by Egyptian and Qatari mediators that included the release of all Israeli hostages taken during Hamas’s attack on Israel October 7. However, Israel rejected that deal, saying gaps in negotiations remain large.

The Biden administration’s decision to pause bomb shipments is a big step.

“This action is welcome,” Senator Peter Welch (D-VT), who has advocated against sending weapons to Israel for anything but defensive purposes, told Vox. “This sends a message that I hope the Netanyahu government hears loud and clear.”

At the same time, the decision to interrupt an arms supply is so far only a one-time event. However, if the US were to continue to deprive Israel of weapons, it could mark a real shift in US policy of providing unconditional support to Israel.

Some foreign affairs experts say existing U.S. laws designed to protect human rights, including what’s known as the “Leahy Act” and the Foreign Assistance Act, should have long ago stopped the flow of military aid to Israel even before the war in Gaza.

With Israel in mind, President Joe Biden also signed a new memorandum in February that requires countries receiving U.S. security assistance to provide “credible and reliable written assurances” that they will use U.S. military assistance in accordance with international law. Under that memorandum, the US government is expected to make a formal decision this week on whether Israel has committed human rights abuses through airstrikes on Gaza and by curbing the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Reports on what that decision might be vary. Depending on the outcome, this could lead to further restrictions on US military aid to Israel.

“Our weapons cannot be used in ways that violate international law or interfere with the government’s ability to provide humanitarian assistance,” Welch said. “So if a violation is found to have occurred, I would say that means we should stop supplying those weapons.”

But despite a long record of human rights abuses, Israel remains the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid, and Biden has been clear in his intention to maintain the US “special relationship” with Israel that dates back decades hold.

What we know about the bomb shipment

The shipment reportedly included 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs. The government is also reportedly considering halting an upcoming shipment of 6,500 munitions that convert unguided bombs (“dumb bombs”) into precision-guided bombs.

The detained shipment could still be released depending on what Israel does next. U.S. officials have expressed particular concern about how the 2,000-pound bombs could be used to wreak weapons of mass destruction in a dense urban area like Rafah, as they have already done in other parts of Gaza.

Biden had personally urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to carry out the operation in Rafah because of the huge refugee population and because the city provides the only route to get humanitarian aid to Gaza. Netanyahu appears to be pressing ahead regardless, further straining the already frosty relationship between the two men. Overall, Biden has rarely criticized Israel directly, with his expression of outrage after the killing of humanitarian workers outside World Central Kitchen being one of the few occasions on which he has done so publicly. (Biden has reportedly privately expressed strong criticism of Netanyahu.)

Israel has seized the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, meaning the Israeli army now controls the flow of humanitarian aid at a time when hospitals in southern Gaza are set to run out of fuel within days. About 50,000 Palestinians have been evacuated from Rafah ahead of the Israeli operation there, but there are many more and there is no plan to guarantee their safety.

Why denying weapons to Israel matters

The decision to interrupt an arms supply is only a temporary administrative decision that is not bound by any law. But it is an indication that the US is trying to exert its influence over Israel – and perhaps enforce its laws protecting human rights – in a way it has not done before.

The US already provided Israel with $4 billion annually through 2028, before Congress approved another $14.1 billion in additional aid last month. Seven months after the war in Gaza, Israel is increasingly dependent on that aid, having already depleted its own ammunition stockpiles.

Foreign military transfers, such as those to Israel, undergo numerous review and approval processes involving the State Department, the Pentagon and Congress. They are also covered by a range of laws, including the Leahy Act. This law, first passed by Congress in 1997, aims to prevent the US from being involved in serious crimes committed by foreign security forces it supports by cutting off aid to a specific unit if the US has credible information that the unit has committed a serious crime. violation of human rights. Such violations generally include torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances or rape, but can also be interpreted more broadly.

No security forces, not even American ones, are completely immune from committing such violations. The aid could be restored later if the State Department determines that the country is taking effective steps to bring responsible units to justice.

Some former administration officials and congressional staff previously told Vox that the law has never worked against Israel, despite what human rights experts, both inside and outside the U.S. government, have identified as substantial evidence that Israel has committed human rights abuses both before and in the past. during the current war in Gaza.

For example, in one 2022 case, a UN investigation found that Israeli forces killed Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American journalist working for Al Jazeera, while she was covering a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank and wearing a blue suit wore. cardigan with the text ‘Pers’. Immediately after her killing, Israeli officials argued that she was “filming and working for a media outlet among armed Palestinians” and may have been killed by stray Palestinian fire, something those on the ground refuted. Israel later admitted that she was likely killed by Israeli fire, but ruled her death an accident and never charged the soldiers involved.

Some Senate Democrats, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), recently asked the Defense Department to address concerns that the Leahy Act is not being consistently applied to Israel.

“Not a single incident resulted in the denial of assistance to any IDF unit,” the senators wrote in a letter. “To ensure that the United States can protect our own national security interests and maintain its credibility as a global leader in human rights, we must apply the law equally.”

The pause in the arms supply could be a first step to ensure that Leahy is applied fairly.