The US is sending billions of dollars of additional military aid to Israel

This week the cape was reached 34,000 recorded deaths in Gaza officially exceeded, one mass grave discovered in the city of Khan Younis, and Amnesty International warned of a spike in deadly settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. None of these messages stopped the US Congress from approving an additional multi-billion dollar military aid package for Israel.

After the bill had been stalled at this political level for months, the House of Representatives passed the additional “security assistance” for Israel last Saturday. The next step in introducing the legislation was approval in the Senate. That hurdle was overcome on Tuesday evening, April 23. After a final signature from President Biden, the additional US support can now flow unhindered to the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his army.

The total assistance package for Israel amounts to $26.38 billion, of which approximately $17 billion in military aid, but also $9 billion for so-called humanitarian needs, including in Gaza and the West Bank. Since Israel systematically hinders humanitarian aid to Gaza, it is not clear how and what that money will be spent on. The legislation already stipulates that humanitarian funds may not be used to support the UN Refugee Agency for Palestinians in the Middle East (UNRWA). The ban is part of Washington’s decision at the end of January to suspend funding for UNRWA – the main source of water, food, medicine and shelter for Palestinians in Gaza – on the basis of vague and unproven accusations by Israel that a number of (now dismissed) UNRWA staff members are alleged to have ties to Hamas.

House of Representatives

In the House of Representatives, 366 members ultimately voted in favor of the additional aid package to Israel and 58 against, of which 37 were Democrats and 21 Republicans (three Democratic members of Congress abstained). In recent weeks, there has finally been some more criticism from Democrats about Israel and the unconditional US support for Netanyahu.

On April 5, 39 Democratic members of Congress addressed another letter to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging them to suspend the planned transfer of weapons to Israel until an investigation into the deaths in Gaza of seven employees had been conducted from ‘World Central Kitchen’ (WCK), a US NGO that delivers meals in situations of humanitarian crisis. The seven, including a man with US citizenship, were victims of a bloody Israeli drone strike on April 1 that targeted a convoy of WCK vehicles.

It was painfully striking how the death of these Western aid workers (only one of the seven victims was a Palestinian) aroused a general outcry in the US, which condemned the more than 32,600 Palestinian deaths in Gaza (more than half of them women and children). ), had not been received.

The letter from Democratic Congress members calls on the US government to halt arms shipments if Israel fails to adequately limit harm to innocent civilians in Gaza, including aid workers, and if it fails to ensure transportation and delivery of humanitarian aid in Gaza – or arbitrarily denies or limits it. The letter specifically refers to the military aid package to Israel that was approved in Congress this week.

A striking finding is that 20 of the Congress members who signed the April 5 letter still voted in favor of the additional military aid last Saturday. It is known that Congress (both in the House of Representatives and the Senate) has traditionally been unconditionally pro-Israel – partly thanks to the generous financial support for politicians from the powerful Israel lobby. Only a number of progressive Democrats dared to be critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza from the start. Even as the weeks and months passed it became increasingly difficult to ignore how murderous and disproportionate these actions were, and even as the outcry against Israeli policies continued to grow in the US (with enormous input from the American Jewish community), in Congress barely moved – until the attack against the WCK convoy on April 1.

Changing postures

But just as the Israeli attack on Western aid workers stirred the minds of some US politicians to such an extent that they suddenly dared to sign a letter criticizing Israel, Iran’s attack on Israel changed the sympathies and rhetoric again. In response to a deadly Israeli airstrike against the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Tehran launched a counterattack with drones and cruise missiles against military targets in Israel on the night of April 13.

“Iran is a terrorist nation. They just carried out a disproportionate terrorist attack on our ally Israel. The free world and the United States will stand against this terrorist nation and the tyranny it advocates,” the Democratic congressman for Texas fulminated. https://twitter.com/JacksonLeeTX18/status/1779288701496947025?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1779288701496947025%7Ctwgr%5E2287ff9a7056cc0b27209c22a632b8daaea73162%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fresponsiblestatecraft.org%2Fr%2Fentryeditor%2F2667770987publish, at X. “We must now approve Biden’s additional funding…”. Jackson Lee was far from the only one who signed the April 5 letter but had a 180 degree change of heart by last Saturday.

Some tried to justify their change in attitude by pointing to the $9 billion for humanitarian purposes included in the Israeli aid package. “While I am deeply concerned about further military assistance to Israel, I could not in good conscience vote against this lifesaving humanitarian assistance,” said Democratic California Congresswoman Sara Jacobs. She explicitly criticized the inclusion of funds for offensive weapons, but claimed that the funds for defensive weapons and humanitarian aid, also provided for in the legislation, were necessary.

Other Democratic leaders who signed the April 5 letter paired their recent vote for additional military assistance to Israel with calls for Biden to pressure Netanyahu to respect international law, protect civilians and/or provide humanitarian aid. into Gaza – all boats that have already been missed. Expressing verbal objections to a policy, but at the same time honoring it with lots of extra money and diplomatic support, is of course a waste of time. That is also the reasoning of several members of Congress who voted against the aid package to Israel.

Nineteen Democratic opponents released a joint statement before the vote in the House of Representatives: “If Congress votes to continue the flow of offensive military aid, we make ourselves complicit in this tragedy.” The emphasis is explicitly placed on the rejection of the supply of weapons for offensive purposes. After all, there is no doubt about “Israel’s right to self-defense” and arms deliveries that serve this purpose (such as strengthening the missile defense system) are approved. “Our votes against, … are votes against providing more offensive weapons that could lead to more killings of civilians in Rafah and elsewhere.” It is also primarily to ensure “a sovereign and secure future for Israel” that this group of 19 naysayers believe that “the US should help reach a ceasefire that will allow hostages to be freed, humanitarian aid delivered and peace talks to begin.”

Senate

The additional military aid to Israel is actually contained in a broader legislative package, worth a total of $95 billion, that would also provide “security assistance” to Ukraine and partners in the Asia-Pacific, especially Taiwan. For Ukraine it provides as much as $60.84 billion (of which only $8 billion is ‘non-military aid’).

Unlike the House of Representatives, where the legislative package was split up for a vote, in the Senate the whole thing was presented at once. Some Democratic senators who dared to be critical of Israel voted in favor and hid behind the need to continue to feed Kiev militarily. There is a fairly broad consensus on this among Democrats, despite the fact that the bloody and destructive war in Ukraine has long been in a hopeless impasse, which is in urgent need of diplomacy instead of more offensive weapons, with the risk of nuclear escalation.

“I said I will support the package because it is essential to provide military assistance to the people of Ukraine in their fight against Putin,” affirmed Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, for example. However, the man has repeatedly expressed his “great concern” about the actions of the Netanyahu government, as well as his support for a “mutual ceasefire.”

On Tuesday, April 23, the Senate approved the military aid package in its entirety, with 79 votes in favor and 18 against – only 3 of the 18 opponents were Democrats. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont) tried to pass two more amendments – one to cut all offensive military aid to Israel and another to restore US funding for UNRWA. However, his efforts were in vain.

When push came to shove, no one voted for his amendments — not even Sanders’ Democratic colleagues, who in recent weeks have become more openly concerned about the staggering number of civilian deaths and the obstruction of humanitarian aid in Gaza. “I find it unbelievable!”, Sanders responded. “At a time when the majority of the American people do not want to continue supporting Netanyahu’s war machine that is slaughtering women and children in Gaza.” He declared in the Senate: “We are complicit to the destruction of the Palestinian people.”