#arms shipments to israel

[eretzyisrael]

by Vijeta Uniyal

Report: Biden Admin halted arms shipment to Israel as a pressure tactic against Rafah invasion

The Biden administration last week halted an ammunition shipment to Israel in a bid to pressure the IDF into abandoning the planned operation in Rafah, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid reported in the new website Axios Sunday.

The revelation comes as Israel’s military offensive against Hamas enters its seventh month. Israel, a key U.S. ally, relies of American-made weapons, ammunition and spare parts for its armed forces.

In recent months, the Biden White House has been threatening to cut shipment of arms and ammunition if Jerusalem did not comply with its demands, including plans to eliminate Hamas leadership cornered in Rafah. According to the The New York Sun on March 18, Washington was “considering leaving Israel short of the armaments it needs to fight Hamas.”

The Axios reported:

The Biden administration last week put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-made ammunition to Israel, two Israeli officials told Axios.(…) The incident raised serious concerns inside the Israeli government and sent officials scrambling to understand why the shipment was held, Israeli officials said. President Biden is facing sharp criticism among Americans who oppose his support of Israel. The administration in February asked Israel to provide assurances that U.S.-made weapons were being used by Israel Defense Forces in Gaza in accordance with international law. Israel provided a signed letter of assurances in March. The Israeli officials said the ammunition shipment to Israel was stopped last week. (…) The White House declined to comment. (…) The Pentagon, the State Department and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office didn’t immediately respond to questions.

[contemplatingoutlander]

President Biden paused an arms shipment to Israel last week to prevent the U.S.-made weapons from being used in a long-threatened assault on the city Rafah, administration officials said on Tuesday night, a sign of the growing rift between Washington and Jerusalem over the conduct of the war. The president withheld 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared could be dropped on Rafah, where more than one million Gazans have taken refuge, the officials said. The administration is reviewing whether to hold back future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions. The decision to delay the delivery of the 3,500 bombs was the first time that Mr. Biden has used his power to curtail arms as an instrument to influence Israel’s approach to the war since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack.

It's about time.

[girlactionfigure]

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a clear and firm statement regarding arms shipments to Israel during a Bundestag session:

“We have supplied weapons to Israel. We will continue to supply weapons to Israel. New arms shipments will be coming soon. This is the position of the German government.”

(Gets applauded)

Gott segne Sie, Bundeskanzler Scholz.

[originalleftist]

Blocking US weapons to Israel "on the table".

Now, this is a statement from a Senator, not the White House, and Biden has recently made clear that a total ban on arms shipments is not on the table (he specified maintaining the Iron Dome, which is a defensive system).

But this does underscore that America's support for Israel is NOT a blank check for Benjamin Netanyahu to do whatever he wants.

[immaculatasknight]

Genocide Joe falls to his knees

[archaalen]

Netanyahu again claims the US is withholding arms shipments, days after Washington denies it

[plethoraworldatlas]

The straightforward demand consistently made by human rights experts, a top European Union official, and college students across the U.S. and in a growing number of countries formed the basis for a Global Day of Action on Thursday, with 250 groups organizing direct actions to call on governments around the world to "Stop Sending Arms" to Israel.

Groups including Amnesty International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and the Center for Jewish Nonviolence helped organize actions in at least 12 countries, "with a strategic emphasis on countries with significant arms exports" and an "aim to resonate globally."

Protest events including rallies, "die-ins," and the projection of messages and images on government buildings were organized in countries including the United States—the top supplier of arms to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)—Canada, Germany, Australia, South Korea, and Slovakia.

"The Global Day of Action must serve as a wake-up call to states that continue to supply arms to all parties to the conflict in Gaza that they are at risk of being complicit in war crimes and other violations of international law," said Erika Guevara Rosas, senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns at Amnesty International.

The groups and their supporters amplified the global campaign on social media using the hashtags #StopSendingArms and #CeasefireNOW.

[kropotkindersurprise]

August 5, 2024 - Palestine Action used a repurposed prison van to crash through the fences and the gates at the heavily-secured Bristol-based research, development and manufacturing hub for Israel's biggest arms producer, Elbit Systems, where they smashed hundreds of thousands of pounds worh of equipment and merchandise.

In this video you can see activists directly smashing high-tech quadcopters that the Israelis have used over and over to gun down innocent people gathering in hospitals or around humanitarian aid shipments. Israel has slaughtered hundreds of people in this way, a naked, unashamed war crime that kind of disappears among all the other war crimes that Israel commits daily, supported by their unconditional american friends Biden and Harris. [video]

[eowyntheavenger]

Americans, these are things we are NOT saying in 2024:

"Voting blue won't solve anything." Yes it will: if enough of us do it, it will solve a problem called Trump's second term in the White House. We unfortunately live in a two-party system. If you refuse to vote, you're effectively voting for Trump. I shouldn't need to explain this to people, yet here we are.

"It doesn't matter who's president. Both candidates are the same anyway." No, they are REALLY not. Biden was never my first choice, and his shipments of arms to Israel are despicable, but don't try to tell me even for a second that a second Trump term would be the same for the world as a second Biden term.

"But voting blue won't fix [fundamental underlying problem in America]." Voting for Democrats cannot fix every issue, this is true. But by saying this and ONLY this you are discouraging people from voting by making them feel hopeless. Voting is one of many tools in our arsenal, not the only tool, but an important one, and it does matter.

"You shouldn't vote blue, you should do [other thing] instead." See above: you can vote and protest and organize at the same time. It's not either/or. You can do it all. Stop discouraging voters from exercising their rights under the guise of leftism.

"Voting is just legitimizing government power. It makes you part of the system." Literally just shut up. Women and people of color didn't fight for their voting rights to have you say things like this. If you live in America and you can legally vote, then you should fucking vote, and vote blue. There is no neutral option.

"Voting blue just makes you complicit in [this bad policy]." Inaction, and allowing Trump to have a second term, is worse for the entire world than any Democrat policy. Yes, even that one. Voting is not about finding a perfect unproblematic candidate. It is about choosing the lesser of two evils.

"Voting doesn't work because—" STOP IT. STOP DISCOURAGING PEOPLE FROM VOTING.

You know who wants you NOT to vote? Trump supporters, that's who. You should be suspicious of ANYONE who is suggesting that your vote doesn't matter, or that both candidates are the same, or that Biden's policy on XYZ means you shouldn't vote for him. Trump supporters aren't trying to get your vote by saying, "Vote for Trump!" They're trying to get your vote by DISCOURAGING YOU FROM VOTING AT ALL.

I don't like Biden either, but Trump is unequivocally worse. Voting doesn't fix everything, but it is the minimum fucking requirement of living in a democracy. Voting for president has real, tangible, immediate impacts on people's lives, and choosing not to vote is not the rebellion you think it is, it is just relinquishing your voice. So fucking vote. THIS IS A GROUP PROJECT AND DAMN IT WE ARE NOT FAILING BECAUSE OF YOU.

[eretzyisrael]

by Vijeta Uniyal

With Israeli troops engaged in pitched battles against well-armed and fortified terrorist forces across Gaza, the military “noted a recent reduction of American arms supplies,” the article added.

Prime Minister Netanyahu on Saturday approved a military and humanitarian plan for capturing the Hamas stronghold, the Israeli media revealed.

The NY Sun reported Monday:

President Biden, keeping Prime Minister Netanyahu at arm’s length, is reportedly considering leaving Israel short of the armaments it needs to fight Hamas. Such a politically based move risks harming America’s global interests. By Sunday, Israel must tell America that it is complying with international restrictions on arms supplies, including by facilitating ample humanitarian assistance to Gaza, the national security adviser, Jacob Sullivan, told reporters Monday, adding that it is yet to do so. Meanwhile, a Jerusalem official noted a recent reduction of American arms supplies to Israel, ABC news reports. The Israel Defense Force is running out of 155 mm artillery shells and 120 mm tank shells, as well as sensitive guidance equipment, the official said. (…) In a deep analysis of the Gaza war, the chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point, John Spencer, concluded that Israel “has painstakingly followed the laws of armed conflict and implemented many steps to prevent civilian casualties, despite enormous challenges.” Denying arms to Israel, then, would be a “political decision” that is “not backed by what has actually happened in Israel and Gaza,” Mr. Spencer tells the Sun. It could also backfire if the IDF runs out of precision bombs, Mr. Roggio adds. As in Iraq during the war there, he says, once supply of such arms dwindles, a military quickly moves to using less discriminating munitions, resulting in higher civilian casualty rates.

Biden tells Netanyahu not to attack Rafah stronghold without ‘Washington’s approval’

The revelation comes as President Joe Biden ‘warned’ Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu not to undertake the planned large-scale military operation in Rafah aimed at eliminating Hamas leadership and freeing the remaining hostages.

In a phone conversation that took place on Monday, Biden “warned” the Israeli prime minister “not to act without approval from Washington in a stern phone call on Monday,” the Jerusalem Post reported. “Israel lacks a viable military strategy to eliminate Hamas in Rafah,” the U.S. president said, according to the newspaper.

The Qatari-funded Al Jazeera called it the “strongest public warning yet to Israel against invading” the terrorist bastion.

The NBC News reported the phone call:

During a critical phone call Monday, President Joe Biden warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against Israel’s carrying out a planned military operation in Rafah, the White House said. “Our position is that Hamas should not be allowed a safe haven in Rafah or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there would be a mistake,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan said at the White House briefing where he outlined the leaders’ conversation. “It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worsen the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza and further isolate Israel internationally,” Sullivan added.

Netanyahu to Biden: “We don’t have any other choice.”

Defying Biden, Netanyahu vowed to go ahead with the planned military operation against the terrorists in Rafah, the Israeli TV channel i23NEWS reported Tuesday:

Prime Minister Netanyahu reportedly told a closed meeting of the Foreign Affairs Knesset committee that “The Americans asked us not to carry out the operation in Rafah, but we don’t have any other choice. We need to have control over the Philadelphi Corridor [Hamas’s main weapons supply route on the Egyptian border].”

[sayruq]

In the one hundred fifty days after October 7, Israel killed thirty-one thousand Palestinians, injured seventy-two thousand, displaced 1.7 million, and razed or damaged more than half of Gaza’s buildings. Joe Biden sent over one hundred weapons shipments to Israel during the same stretch. In a recent classified briefing, US officials told members of Congress that the Biden administration approved and delivered more than one hundred separate weapons sales to Israel in the one hundred fifty days after October 7, “amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid,” the Washington Post reported on Wednesday. That works out to one new arms deal every thirty-six hours, on average.

[i-am-aprl]

BREAKING: Canada has become the first major Western ally of Israel to halt weapons exports to Israel.

Canada's parliament passed a non-binding motion calling on the government to stop sending weapons to Israel and the Foreign Minister has since confirmed that they will end its weapons shipments.

While the move falls short of a full arms embargo, it has drawn strong criticism from Israeli officials who are afraid it could trigger a domino effect among other Western countries.

[imanes]

"Refusal to handle military equipment for war in Palestine

While a genocide is underway in Palestine, workers at the various airports in Belgium are seeing weapons headed for war zones.

The loading and unloading of these weapons enables the resupplying of organizations killing innocent people.

We, the different unions active in the ground handling sector, call on our members not to handle flights that ship military material to Palestine/Israel as there were also clear agreements and rules at the start of the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.

We call for an immediate ceasefire and ask the Belgian governments to be consistent and not to tolerate arms shipments through Belgian airports. As unions, we declare our solidarity with those who are taking action for peace.

The common trade union front"

[immaculatasknight]

Dark comedy in the Oval Office

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

The Washington Post reported that administration officials informed Congress of the 100 foreign military sales to Israel in a classified briefing. Few details are known of the sales, because keeping each one small meant their contents remained secret, but they are reported to have included precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid. The Arms Export Control Act makes significant exceptions for arms sales to close allies – a limit of $25m for ‘major defense equipment’, defined as big-ticket items that require a lot of research and development, but the limit rises to $100m for other “defense articles” like bombs. “This doesn’t just seem like an attempt to avoid technical compliance with US arms export law, it’s an extremely troubling way to avoid transparency and accountability on a high-profile issue,” Ari Tolany, director of the security assistance monitor at the Centre for International Policy thinktank, said. She added that, in exploiting the loophole, the Biden administration was following the steps of its predecessor. “They’re very much borrowing from the Trump playbook to dodge congressional oversight,” Tolany said. The state department office of the inspector general found that between 2017 and 2019, the Trump administration had made 4,221 below-threshold arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, worth an estimated total of $11.2bn.

[probablyasocialecologist]

The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza. The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. But Blinken and the administration of President Joe Biden did not accept either finding. Days later, on May 10, Blinken delivered a carefully worded statement to Congress that said, “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”

[...]

Separately, the head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration had also determined that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to freeze almost $830 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for weapons and bombs to Israel, according to emails obtained by ProPublica. The U.N. has declared a famine in parts of Gaza. The world’s leading independent panel of aid experts found that nearly half of the Palestinians in the enclave are struggling with hunger. Many go days without eating. Local authorities say dozens of children have starved to death — likely a significant undercount. Health care workers are battling a lack of immunizations compounded by a sanitation crisis. Last month, a little boy became Gaza’s first confirmed case of polio in 25 years. The USAID officials wrote that because of Israel’s behavior, the U.S. should pause additional arms sales to the country. ProPublica obtained a copy of the agency’s April memo along with the list of evidence that the officials cited to back up their findings.

24 September 2024