Gaza War Turns Spotlight on Long Pipeline of U.S. Weapons to Israel

In the fall of 2016, the Obama administration sealed a major military agreement with Israel that committed the United States to giving the country $38 billion in arms over 10 years.

. . .

At the time, the agreement was uncontroversial. It was a period of relative calm for Israel, and few officials in Washington expressed concern about how the American arms might one day be used.

Now that military aid package, which guarantees Israel $3.3 billion per year to buy weapons, along with another $500 million annually for missile defense, has become a flashpoint for the Biden administration. A vocal minority of lawmakers in Congress backed by liberal activists are demanding that President Biden restrict or even halt arms shipments to Israel because of its military campaign in Gaza.

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Sanctus,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Does this agreement not include any lines of illegal use of weapons making it void? Is that not standard to include some legalese of “no genocide”?

tiefling,

Nah they used rocket lawyer instead of a real lawyer to save money /s

zerog_bandit,

Kind of a moot point since there’s no genocide going on.

Now if you want to talk about war crimes, there’s hostages that are currently being raped to death in Gaza.

juicy,

Panel of international law judges: this is plausibly a genocide.

u/zerog_bandit: no. also, why are you talking about the 15k dead children instead of the 100 hostages?

Eyck_of_denesle,

there’s hostages that are currently being raped to death in Gaza.

By the IDF?

Sanctus,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

All of your comments are pro Israel. Its the only thing on the profile.

juicy,

Last Monday, the U.S. State Department deemed Israel in compliance with President Biden’s landmark national security memorandum issued in February. That memorandum required that recipients of U.S. weapons must demonstrate compliance with international law, and that they not interfere with or block the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The State Department made this determination despite all of the credible evidence to the contrary. More than a million starving civilians in Gaza — possibly 90 percent of its remaining population — would beg to differ. And every aid agency working inside Gaza testifies to the unfolding catastrophe there.

thehill.com/…/4577306-israel-is-not-in-compliance…

Sanctus,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

Idk what I expected when I asked…

Sanctus,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

And also, we should riot

Altofaltception,

Israel is and always has been a welfare state. Their entire existence has been funded through foreign remittances or by handouts from the US.

The supply of US weapons only makes sense.

catloaf,

I don’t think that’s accurate. They were founded by Britain as part of WWI. And they’re fairly self-sufficient, even having their own military hardware industry big enough to export.

But they do get an unreasonable amount of US financial and material aid.

harrys_balzac,

For the first few years after their independence, the US was hesitant to support Israel because they considered kibbutzim to be hotbeds of communism.

maynarkh,

If only

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