Sunday Times 2
America’s deadly weapons of civilian destruction (WCDs)
View(s):By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – As the devastating 11-month-old Gaza conflict keeps escalating, with over 40,000 mostly civilian killings of women and children and more than 92,000 Palestinians injured—in retaliation for the 1,200 killings inside Israel—the Israelis continue to defy the United States, which maintains its uninterrupted flow of heavy weapons to Tel Aviv.
There are two hardcore lessons in this conflict. Perhaps Israel should realise that you cannot continue biting the hand that feeds you, while the Biden administration should realise that you cannot continue to feed the mouth that bites you.
Much of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed in the conflict. “The Secretary-General condemns the continued loss of life in Gaza, including women and children, as we witness yet another devastating strike by Israel on the Al-Tabeen School in Gaza City, sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinian families, with scores of fatalities, amidst continued horror, displacement, and suffering in Gaza,” said UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq. The incident occurred on September 8, and at least 100 people were killed, according to international media reports, which cited the Gaza health authorities. Pic courtesy UNRWA
The world’s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are categorised mostly as nuclear and chemical weapons. But the US-supplied missiles and 2,000-pound bombs dropped on Gaza are best described as weapons of civilian destruction (WCDs), which have also reduced cities to rubble. On September 11, the New York Times ran a story on the latest killings of civilians, titled “Israel Kills Gazans as its Air Power Hits a Humanitarian Zone.”
The Times quoted Trevor Ball, a former US Army explosive ordnance-disposal technician, as identifying a fragment found at the most recent bombing in Gaza as “the tail section of a SPICE-2000 kit, a precision-guided kit used with 2,000-pound bombs.
If Israel is accused of genocide and war crimes, where does the US fit in as the major supplier of arms that are killing all these civilians?
According to a Cable News Network (CNN) report early this week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has called for “fundamental changes” to the way Israeli forces operate in the occupied West Bank after the killing of American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi at a protest last week.
US President Joe Biden condemned Eygi’s killing on Wednesday. “I am outraged and deeply saddened by the death of Aysenur Eygi,” Biden said in a statement, adding that the shooting “is totally unacceptable.”
Biden called for “full accountability” for her death after Israel “has acknowledged its responsibility.” Israel, he added, “must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again.”
As an old Middle Eastern saying goes, the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on.
Is this a reflection of the unrestrained power of the Israeli lobby in the US Congress, which one-time Republican US presidential candidate Pat Buchanan called “Israeli-occupied territory”? Does this now include the White House?
And, on August 13, as the civilian killings continued unabated, the Biden Administration formally notified Congress of its plan to authorise the sale of a staggering list of arms to Israel, including:
n An $18.8 billion sale of 50 F-15 fighter jets and related equipment;
n A $774 million sale of up to 32,739 120mm tank cartridges and related equipment;
n A $583 million sale of Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTVs) and related equipment;
n A $102 million sale of 30 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and related equipment; and,
n A $61 million sale of 50,000 M933A1 120mm high explosive mortar cartridges and related equipment
According to an October 2023 report from the US State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman.
Since its founding in 1948, the United States has provided Israel with over $130 billion in bilateral assistance focused on addressing new and complex security threats, bridging Israel’s capability gaps through security assistance and cooperation, increasing interoperability through joint exercises, and helping Israel maintain its Qualitative Military Edge (QME).
This assistance has helped transform the Israel Defence Forces into “one of the world’s most capable, effective militaries and turned the Israeli military industry and technology sector into one of the largest exporters of military capabilities worldwide”.
Since 1983, the United States and Israel have met regularly via the Joint Political-Military Group (JPMG) to promote shared policies, address common threats and concerns, and identify new areas for security cooperation.
The 48th JPMG, held in October 2022, reaffirmed the ironclad strategic partnership between the United States and Israel, underscoring a mutual commitment to advance collaboration in support of regional security and reinforce the historic achievements of recent normalisation under the Abraham Accords.
Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) programme. This has been formalised by a 10-year (2019-2028) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
Consistent with the MOU, the United States annually provides $3.3 billion in FMF and $500 million for cooperative programmes for missile defence. Since FY 2009, the United States has provided Israel with $3.4 billion in funding for missile defence, including $1.3 billion for Iron Dome support starting in FY 2011.
Through FMF, the United States provides Israel with access to some of the most advanced military equipment in the world, including the F-35 Lightning. Israel is eligible for Cash Flow Financing and is authorised to use its annual FMF allocation to procure defence articles, services, and training through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, direct commercial contract agreements (which are FMF-funded direct commercial sales procurements), and offshore Offshore Procurement (OSP).
And via OSP, the current MOU allows Israel to spend a portion of its FMF on Israeli-origin rather than U.S.-origin defence articles. This was 25 percent in FY 2019 but is set to phase out and decrease to zero in FY 2028.
Israel has been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defence trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States.
Consistent with statutory requirements, it is the policy of the United States to help Israel preserve its QME, or its ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties.
This requires a quadrennial report to Congress for arms transfers that are required to be Congressionally notified and a determination that individual arms transfers to the region will not adversely affect Israel’s QME.
(Thalif Deen, Senior Editor, UN Bureau, Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, is a former Director of foreign Military Markets at Defence Marketing Services; Senior Defence Analyst at Forecast International; military editor Middle East/Africa at Jane’s Information Group, USA; and one-time UN correspondent for Jane’s Defence Weekly, London.)