MESOP MIDEAST WATCH ANALYSIS : Top of the Agenda – THE ISRAELI GHAZA MASS MURDER CONTINUES

Biden Administration Advances Plan for New $1 Billion Arms Sale to Israel / FOREIGN AFFAIRS USA  16-5-24

The Joe Biden administration notified Congress yesterday that it plans to sell more than $1 billion in new weapons to Israel, unnamed U.S. and congressional officials told the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets.

The package reportedly includes tank ammunition, tactical vehicles, and mortar rounds. When asked for comment on the new package, the White House and State Department referred to U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s statement on Monday that the United States is “continuing to send military assistance” to Israel despite previously pausing one shipment of two-thousand-pound bombs over concerns they might be dropped in densely populated cities.   

U.S. officials have stressed particular concern over the possibility of a full-scale Israeli military offensive in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah, from which almost 450,000 people have evacuated (BBC) over the past week, according to the United Nations. Sullivan said (NYT) in his Monday remarks that Washington was “still working with Israel on a better way to ensure the defeat of Hamas everywhere in Gaza, including in Rafah.” In the immediate term, U.S. negotiators have pushed for a cease-fire and hostage exchange deal between Israel and Hamas, though Qatar’s prime minister said yesterday that those talks were at “almost a stalemate.”   

Analysis

“The idea that Israel is being abandoned or left to stand alone is preposterous. 99 percent of U.S. military aid (that totals close to $4 billion annually) will continue to flow,” CFR President Emeritus Richard Haass writes on Substack. “I see the [previous] Biden arms decision as an example of the United States acting independently on behalf of its own interests and preferences, much as it did in air-dropping food aid and building a pier off Gaza or in abstaining on a UN resolution Israel wanted vetoed.” 

“The potential arms transfer illustrated the narrow path the Biden administration is walking with Israel, trying to prevent an assault on Rafah and limit civilian casualties in Gaza but continuing to supply a longtime ally that the president has said has a right to defend itself,” the New York Times’ Robert Jimison writes.

Read the full suite of Foreign Affairs and CFR.org resources on Israel and the current conflict.