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US Threatens Israel With Arms Embargo As Evidence Of War Crimes Becomes Impossible to Deny

by | Oct 16, 2024

For as long as Joe Biden has been in politics, he’s kept his hand in the pockets of the Israel lobby. As president, the man who once declared that “you don’t have to be Jewish to be a Zionist” has practiced what he has preached by providing Israel with a whopping $17.9 billion dollars in military aid since the outbreak of the war in Gaza. Although Biden has continued his staunch support of Israel, the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza has brought pause to his the core tenet of his woeful foreign policy. The strongest sign of a change in the tenor of the Biden administration’s support for Israel has emerged as Secretary Of State Antony Blinken and Secretary Of Defense Lloyd Austin have threatened to implement an arms embargo over Israel if the country does not take steps to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

In a letter addressed to Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer on October 13th, Blinken and Austin conveyed their  “deep concern over the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza in recent weeks” as the war has passed its one-year anniversary. The letter makes note of National Security Memorandum 20, which President Biden issued in February. The memorandum directs Blinked to “to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments” that the US of military aid including weapons from the United States will be exercised in accordance with international law. NSM-20’s issuance falls in line with the powers vested in the Executive Branch regarding the legality of foreign military aid under the Arms Export Control Act, which provides the president with discretion determining the shipment of weapons.

Concern over Israel acting in accordance with the parameters of NSM-20 has been a matter of internal conflict for Secretary Blinken’s State Department from the inception of the war. In April, senior US officials advised Blinked that they had not found any credible or reliable assurances from Israel that its use of weapons from military aid packages was being used with adherence to international humanitarian law. These doubts were brought to Blinken in a joint submission from four bureaus within the State Department: Democracy Human Rights & Labor; Population, Refugees and Migration; Global Criminal Justice and International Organization Affairs.

The tenuous nature of Blinken’s support for continued military aid to Israel was exemplified by the fact that the Biden administration failed to file a report regarding its review of the IDF adhering the the parameters of NSM-20 by the May 8th deadline it was required to. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told a press briefing the report would not be finished in time but that the State Department was working “very hard” to complete it. In spite of the concerns raised by senior State Department officials and ample evidence of Israel’s breaches of US and international law, Blinken reported to Congress that he found Israel was acting in accordance with NSM-20. The 46-page report examined the adherence to NSM-20 by 6 different nations receiving weapons from the United States. The section on Israel encompassed nearly one-third of the report.

Claims that Israel was not acting in accordance with international humanitarian law were validated by the report in a section that stated “given Israel’s significant reliance on U.S.-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm.”  The report also made explicit mention that Israel was willfully concealing information about strikes against civilian targets. It also determined that Israel did not fully cooperate with “efforts to maximize humanitarian assistance flow to and distribution within Gaza,” though stopping short of asserting Israel was intentionally stopping those humanitarian efforts as that would qualify as a clear violation of NSM-20. In spite of those apparent admissions that Israel was in breach of US and international law, the report went on to qualify those considerations by stating “we are not able to reach definitive conclusions on whether defense articles covered by NSM-20 were used in these or other individual strikes,” before ultimately reaching the contradictory conclusion that Israel had provided the state department with “credible and reliable so as to allow the provision of defense articles covered under NSM-20 to continue.”

The report fraught with contradictions tantamount to admissions that should have made future arms shipments to Israel illegal under US law reared its ugly head in late September. Leaked State Department emails from the head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration exposed Blinken’s disregard of proof that Israel was intentionally blocking the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza. Blinken had minimized this claim in his NSM-20 report by writing that “efforts to maximize humanitarian assistance flow to and distribution within Gaza,” were not being followed despite being advised internally by senior State Department officials that Israel was blatantly blocking humanitarian aid. That breach of international humanitarian law should have immediately triggered a freeze almost $830 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for weapons and bombs set to be distributed to Israel after the report was filed with Congress.

The facade woven by Blinken to authorize continued arms shipment to Israel has begun to crumble, as evidenced by the October 13th letter sent by him and Secretary Of Defense Lloyd Austin. The letter refers to Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid, stating that the Netanyahu reaffirms its commitment to assure its delivery  to and within Gaza. The letter then concludes that Israel has 30 days to assuage the concerns raised by Blinken and Austin or risk an embargo on weapons shipments from the United States.

In typical contradictory fashion, Blinken and Austin’s directive came just after the US deployed its THAAD missile defense system to Israel. The decision to send the anti-ballistic missile system also required the deployment of over 100 troops to be sent into the middle eastern theater of war to operate them in the event of a seemingly inevitable resurgence of the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran.

Just days after the announcement of the deployment of the THAAD missile defense systems and subsequent impotent threat of an embargo, the IDF put its apparent wanton abandonment of international humanitarian law back on center stage. The IDF killed at least 15 Palestinians in its most recent wave of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. The airstrikes hit the the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah within central Gaza. The hospital was the site of a makeshift refugee camp. Video captured from the airstrikes showed civilians burning alive, imagery exemplifying the absolute absence of any consideration or regard for human life by the IDF.

The shocking footage prompted an outcry from the international community. The US National Security Council offered its own remarks on the airstrikes. “The images and video of what appear to be displaced civilians burning alive following an Israeli air strike are deeply disturbing and we have made our concerns clear to the Israeli government,” according to a formal statement offered by the USNSC. The statement went on to say “Israel has a responsibility to do more to avoid civilian casualties — and what happened here is horrifying, even if Hamas was operating near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields.”

Israel reprised its brazen lack of accountability by responding to the airstrikes with platitudes that have long-served as the foundation of its empty rhetoric. IDF international spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani categorized the bombing as a precision strike carefully executed against a command and control center operated by Hamas in proximity to the hospital. Shoshani reiterated the IDF’s commitment to taking “numerous steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence.” in the face of evidence that defies any semblance of credibility.

Although the magnitude of the images emanating from Israel’s latest airstrike erase any thought that Israel is somehow operating in accordance with the parameters of NSM-20, irrefutable evidence of that has been documented throughout the course of its war against Hamas. The criminal disregard for this evidence has emboldened Israel, expanding its war into Lebanon and initiating exchanges with Iran. The downward trajectory of the geopolitical stability in the regime, much like the rapid deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Gaza has been made possible by the complicity of the US, led by Blinken and Austin.

While the threat of an embargo seems like little more than another episode in the empty political posturing the Biden administration has taken to save face, that situation has been rendered unsalvageable as a deluge of evidence exposing Antony Blinken’s violations of US and international law by disregarding NSM-20 has been unleashed. The wake of that evidence may be the only impetus of enforcing an embargo as Blinken’s commitment to defend Israel’s right to exist may soon take a backseat to a fight for his own self-preservation as his role in facilitating its war crimes has become undeniable.

Reprinted with permission from BlueApples.

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