Continued provision of arms violates U.S. and international law, signals unconditional support for Israeli war on Gaza
(Washington D.C., August 13, 2024): The Senate should introduce a Joint Resolution of Disapproval to block the sale of F-15 fighter jets, related munitions, and other arms to Israel, a package which, if executed, would be in violation of U.S. and international laws, said DAWN today.
Continuing to provide weapons to Israel also subjects U.S. officials to legal liability and prosecution in pending international trials for complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.
"The people of Gaza are pleading for food and medicine, as Israel continues to rebuff the Biden administration's pleas to ramp down its deliberate bombardment of civilians and allow aid to reach the starving population," said DAWN Senior Advisor Josh Paul. "Authorizing billions of dollars in new arms transfers effectively provides Israel a carte blanche to continue its atrocities in Gaza and to escalate the conflict to Lebanon–and doing so while Congress is in recess is especially craven."
On August 13, the Biden Administration formally notified Congress of its intent to authorize for Israel:
- An $18.8 billion sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets and related equipment;
- A $774 million sale of up to 32,739 120mm tank cartridges and related equipment;
- A $583 million sale of Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV)s and related equipment;
- A $102 million sale of 30 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and related equipment; and,
- A $61 million sale of 50,000 M933A1 120mm High Explosive mortar cartridges and related equipment.
In addition, last week the State Department notified Congress of a sale of 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS) for Israel under a Direct Commercial Sales license.
While the aircraft will take several years to be built and delivered, the administration can start transferring the tens of thousands of munitions in this package far more quickly. Such munitions pose a real threat to civilians in Gaza and Lebanon, based on Israel's indiscriminate and deliberate bombardment of Gaza's civilian population, particularly since October 2023, currently the subject of two international judicial proceedings.
In June 2024, Reuters reported that the Administration had transferred at least 14,000 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 6,500 500-pound bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions. The number of transferred Mk84 2,000lb bombs alone would create an injury radius equivalent to the area of Rhode Island, or ten times the area of Gaza.
The only mechanism available to Congress to prevent this sale from advancing is a Joint Resolution of Disapproval (JRD). JRDs are subject to expedited procedures in the Senate that allow any Senator to bring them to the floor of the Senate for a vote 10 days after introduction, if they have not been acted upon by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. By notifying these cases during a Congressional recess, the Biden Administration will argue, it can still move forward on them within 15 days. However, the Senate Parliamentarian has previously ruled that the Senate can consider these cases even after the 15-day clock has expired, and must take up this matter with urgency upon its return in September.
The Senate should introduce a JRD to attempt to block all of these sales, urged DAWN. While such a maneuver has never succeeded in stopping an arms sale by the U.S. government, returning this debate to the Senate floor is a matter of great urgency. Congressional oversight and debate is all the more needed considering the deep divisions within senior staff in the White House, State Department and Defense Departments that have resulted in an unprecedented number of resignations.
Since October 7, 2023, the Biden administration has approved more than 100 different foreign military sales to Israel. These include tens of thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, and bunker-buster bombs. Only two significant sales were publicly disclosed: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million worth of components for 155mm artillery shells. The other transactions were below the threshold requiring public disclosure or congressional notification. As a Senior Administration Official told the press on June 26th, the U.S. has provided over $6.5 billion worth of Arms to Israel in the past nine months – and on August 9th released a further $3.5 billion in taxpayer funding for Israel's military.
"Notable in Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent speech to Congress was the complete absence of any acceptance of responsibility for civilian casualties – and certainly no sign of remorse for the immense suffering visited upon the Palestinian people in Gaza. Instead, he asked America to not only continue to provide the arms that have caused so much death, but to expedite those arms, so that Israel can 'finish the job faster,'" said Paul. "How, in the absence of even the slightest recognition that Israel's war has killed so many innocents and done so much damage to civilian infrastructure, can America proceed with the provision of such arms and have any confidence at all that they will be used in a manner any differently to the abject brutality which Israel has thus far demonstrated?"
Any new authorization for weapons to Israel also breaches both U.S. and international laws prohibiting arms transfers to a state engaged in gross violations of human rights. Under §502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, "no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." Under §620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, "No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any country when it is made known to the President that the government of such country prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance." Under §4 of National Security Memorandum 18, the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, "no arms transfer will be authorized where the United States assesses that it is more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients' commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such; or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including serious acts of gender‑based violence or serious acts of violence against children."
Similarly, under 18 USC § 1091, concerning the crime of genocide, "Any person who attempts or conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be punished in the same manner as a person who completes the offense." And under 18 U.S. Code § 2441, the War Crimes Act, any person who conspires to cause "serious bodily injury to one or more persons, including lawful combatants, in violation of the law of war," including "any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;" "shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death."
"Despite the recommendation of U.N. Experts that States and companies must immediately end arms transfers to Israel, the Biden Administration has decided that this is the right time to move forward on one of the biggest arms transfer cases from the U.S. to Israel in history," said DAWN Executive Director Sarah Leah Whitson. "These new arms sales will not only signal support for Israel's atrocities in Gaza that have shocked the conscience of the entire world, they will encourage continued Israeli belligerence and further destabilize the entire region."
On June 20, 2024, a group of UN-appointed special rapporteurs issued a statement calling for an immediate halt to arms transfers to Israel. The experts emphasized that any weapons provided to Israel could be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza, potentially implicating states and companies in these violations.
Both the International Court of Justice and a United States federal district court have now found that there is a plausible and credible case that Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, while the International Criminal Court is considering indictments for war crimes against Israel's Prime Minister and Defense Minister in its ongoing investigation into violations of the Rome Statute in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
