Republicans push a bill condemning Biden for pausing weapons delivery to Israel

IMEU Policy Project Memo #8

This week the House will vote on a bill condemning the president for pausing the delivery of some weapons to Israel and forcing him to expedite further shipments of weapons to Israel. The text of the bill introduced by Rep. Calvert is here. 

Here’s what is wrong with the bill:   

1. This bill seeks to reverse an extremely limited and long-overdue Biden administration step to insist Israel comply with US law and policy. The Biden administration’s decision to hold up shipments of JDAM’s and small diameter bombs, and pausing the delivery of 1,800 two thousand-pound bombs and 1,700 five hundred-pound bombs, is a drop in the bucket of the repeated expedited weapons deliveries to Israel that the Biden administration has facilitated over the past seven months, oftentimes in the process circumventing congressional notification to do so.

As NSC spokesperson John Kirby noted, Israel is “still getting the vast, vast majority of everything that they need” through other weapons shipments. Instead of supporting Republican efforts to condemn the president for taking a small step in the right direction, Members of Congress instead should be introducing and supporting legislation to cut off all weapons transfers to Israel for its egregious violations of US law and policies as it continues to expand its military operations against Palestinian civilians in Rafah.

2. This bill seeks to create a two-tiered human rights standard for weapons transfers–a lower standard for Israel and a higher standard for the rest of the world. Through this bill, Republicans are attempting to further exceptionalize Israel, in essence revoking the president’s discretionary authorities to delay or withhold the delivery of weapons due to Israel’s flagrant and obvious violations of US laws, including the Foreign Assistance and Arms Export Control Acts, and Biden administration policies on weapons transfers, embodied in NSM-18 and NSM-20.

Republicans are trying to place Israel–and only Israel–above the law when it comes to its eligibility to receive US weapons based on globally applicable human rights standards written into US law. Rather than treating Israel as every other country should be treated under US law, Republicans are attempting to single out Israel for special treatment. 

3. This bill mandates the delivery of weapons to Israel’s Ministry of Public Security, headed by extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir. In December, the Biden administration reportedly held up the delivery of 20,000 rifles to Ben-Gvir’s ministry over fears that the rifles would be distributed to Israeli settlers, exacerbating the potential for more Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.

4. This bill prioritizes the expedited delivery of weapons to Israel to commit additional gross violations of human rights against Palestinian civilians in Gaza over and above US national security. The bill would withhold funds from the Departments of Defense and State as well as the NSC if weapons are not delivered to Israel within 15 days of the bill’s enactment.

As an example, the bill would withhold funds for the State Department’s Diplomatic Programs, which, according to CRS, covers “most domestic and overseas Foreign Service and Civil Service personnel salaries”, severely impacting the ability of the department to function.

5. This bill would prohibit salary payments to any employee of the Departments of Defense and State who follow US law and Biden administration weapons transfer policies when assessing the legality of weapons deliveries to Israel. In essence, Republicans are trying to take away the livelihood of federal government employees who do their jobs. 

6. This bill is a blatant partisan effort to score cheap electoral points in an election year by condemning the president for taking a very limited step toward temporarily pausing the delivery of some weapons to Israel in line with US law and Biden administration policy.