by Stephen Zunes, Truthout, May 26, 2024 https://truthout.org/articles/biden-continues-to-provide-israel-billions-for-war-crimes
Despite Friday’s near-unanimous ruling by the International Court of Justice for Israel to halt its devastating attacks on the Gazan city of Rafah and Biden’s previous pledge to halt offensive military aid if they did so, U.S. arms continue to flow. As Israeli forces continue to carry out war crimes in Gaza, the United States has seen growing popular opposition to military aid to Israel’s far right government. Since the Nixon administration, the United States has been sending over $2 billion in taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel every year. Starting in 2016, it was raised to $3.8 billion annually, supplemented by an additional $14.1 billion provided this year. Among the weapons approved by President Joe Biden in late March to ship to Israel were 1,800 MK-84 bombs, weighing roughly 2,000 pounds (900 kilograms), which are powerful enough to level an entire apartment block and leave a crater 35-feet (11 meters) deep. Israel has killed many hundreds of Palestinian civilians in recent months using this U.S.-supplied weapon. . . . Continued U.S. military aid to Israel violates Section 6201 of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, which prohibits aid to countries that block U.S. humanitarian operations, as well as the 1999 Leahy Amendment, which prohibits support for foreign security forces engaged in gross human rights violations. The Biden administration refuses to abide by these laws and neither Congress nor the courts have been willing to enforce them. . . . ... But the Biden administration and a large bipartisan majority of Congress are choosing to continue to provide armaments to Israel’s war machine regardless of the humanitarian catastrophe that Israel is inflicting, and with total disregard to public opinion in the United States and the views of the international community. Biden’s decision to continue to provide arms to Israel in the face of ongoing war crimes sends a dangerous message to right-wing governments around the world that they can slaughter tens of thousands of civilians and the United States will continue to provide them with unconditional military aid regardless. # # # -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#30528): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/30528 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/106342394/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
