Washington(National Times) The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington\u2019s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza. These officials, like some others, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because recent authorizations have not been disclosed publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The development underscores that while rifts have emerged between the United States and Israel over the war\u2019s conduct, the Biden administration views weapons transfers as off-limits when considering how to influence the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
\u201cWe have continued to support Israel\u2019s right to defend itself,\u201d said a White House official. \u201cConditioning aid has not been our policy.\u201d
Some Democrats, including allies of President Biden, say the U.S. government has a responsibility to withhold weapons in the absence of an Israeli commitment to limit civilian casualties during a planned operation in Rafah, a final Hamas stronghold, and ease restrictions on humanitarian aid into the enclave, which is on the brink of famine.
\u201cThe Biden administration needs to use their leverage effectively and, in my view, they should receive these basic commitments before greenlighting more bombs for Gaza,\u201d Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in an interview. \u201cWe need to back up what we say with what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli government declined to comment on the authorizations.
Four Hamas battalions remain in Rafah, say U.S. and Israeli officials. More than 1.2 million Palestinians have sought shelter there after being forced from their homes during Israel\u2019s extensive bombing campaign over the past five months. Biden suggested that a scorched-earth invasion of the city along Gaza\u2019s border with Egypt would cross a \u201cred line\u201d for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden requested that Netanyahu send a team of security officials to Washington this week to listen to U.S. proposals for limiting the bloodshed. Netanyahu canceled the visit after the United States refused to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution that called for a temporary cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages, but which did not condemn Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli officials have not allayed U.S. concerns about the impending operation in Rafah, but they agreed to reschedule the meeting in Washington, the White House said.
The increasingly public spat has not dissuaded Biden from rushing weapons and military equipment into the conflict. Last week, the State Department authorized the transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth roughly $2.5 billion, U.S. officials said. The case was approved by Congress in 2008, so the department was not required to provide a new notification to lawmakers.
The MK84 and MK82 bombs authorized this week for transfer also were approved by Congress years ago but had not yet been fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Washington\u2019s marginalization on the world stage over its support for Israel has rankled some Democrats in Congress, some of whom have called for more transparency in arms transfers and raised questions about whether the authorization of older unfilled cases is an effort to avoid new notifications to Congress, which could face scrutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When asked about the transfers, a State Department official said that \u201cfulfilling an authorization from one notification to Congress can result in dozens of individual Foreign Military Sales cases across the decades-long life-cycle of the congressional notification.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs a matter of practicality, major procurements, like Israel\u2019s F-35 program for example, are often broken out into several cases over many years,\u201d the official added.
The 2,000-pound bombs, capable of leveling city blocks and leaving craters in the earth 40 feet across and larger, are almost never used anymore by Western militaries in densely populated locations due to the risk of civilian casualties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel has used them extensively in Gaza, according to several reports, most notably in the bombing of Gaza\u2019s Jabalya refugee camp Oct. 31. U.N. officials decried the strike, which killed more than 100 people, as a \u201cdisproportionate attack that could amount to war crimes.\u201d Israel defended the bombing, saying it resulted in the death of a Hamas leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli officials deny that their military campaign has been indiscriminate and say civilian casualties are the fault of Hamas for embedding its fighters among the population in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden\u2019s decision to continue the flow of weapons to Israel has been strongly supported by powerful pro-Israel interest groups in Washington, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is spending tens of millions of dollars this election cycle to unseat Democrats it views as insufficiently pro-Israel.
AIPAC, alongside congressional Republicans and several Democrats, oppose any conditions on U.S. military assistance to Israel. \u201cThe U.S. can protect civilians, on both sides of the conflict, by continuing to ensure Israel receives as much U.S. assistance as is needed, as expeditiously as possible, to keep its stockpiles full of lifesaving munitions,\u201d Reps. August Pfluger (R-Tex.) and Don Davis (D-N.C.), and Michael Makovsky, president of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, wrote in a recent column. \u201cDoing so is also morally right and in the U.S. interest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden\u2019s recurring approvals of weapons transfers are an \u201cabrogation of moral responsibility, and an assault on the rule of law as we know it, at both the domestic and international levels,\u201d said Josh Paul, a former State Department official involved in arms transfers who resigned in protest of Biden\u2019s Gaza policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a policymaking process that is fundamentally broken, and which makes everyone from policymaking officials to defense manufacturers to the U.S. taxpayer complicit in Israel\u2019s war crimes,\u201d he said.
The Post\u2019s reporting on the new weapons authorizations follows a visit to Washington by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant this week in which he requested that the Biden administration expedite a range of weaponry.
Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday that Israeli officials have been asking for weapons they consider important \u201cin pretty much every meeting\u201d he has been in with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel has \u201cnot received everything they\u2019ve asked for,\u201d Brown said. The United States has withheld some, he said, either due to capacity limits or because U.S. officials were not willing at the time. Brown did not identify the weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hours later, the Pentagon clarified Brown\u2019s remarks, highlighting the issue\u2019s sensitivity. Navy Capt. Jereal Dorsey, a spokesman for the general, said there has been no change in policy and that the United States assesses its stockpiles as it provides aid to partners. \u201cThe United States continues to provide security assistance to our ally Israel as they defend themselves from Hamas,\u201d Dorsey said.
Advocates of the policy inside the administration say behind-the-scenes discussions with the Israelis have succeeded in delaying the country\u2019s Rafah operation, which they now don\u2019t expect to happen until May. But at least part of that delay is due to Israel\u2019s military operations in Khan Younis taking longer than anticipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, since the war began in response to the Oct. 7 cross-border attack in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took at least 250 hostage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Any increase in fighting in Rafah, a key transit point for humanitarian aid, risks exacerbating conditions across the enclave that the United Nations and aid groups say is suffering from chronic shortages of food, water and medicine. A massive influx of aid trucks is required to remedy the situation, but U.S. officials say Israel has imposed onerous restrictions on deliveries, which are deeply unpopular inside Netanyahu\u2019s far-right coalition government.
The Biden administration does not see that its words and actions are in conflict with respect to weapons transfers, Van Hollen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey do not see the contradiction between sending more bombs to the Netanyahu government even as it is ignoring their demands with respect to Rafah and getting more humanitarian assistance to starving people,\u201d he said. \u201cIf this is a partnership it needs to be a two-way street.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington(National Times) The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington\u2019s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n