The State Department bypasses Congress to approve Israel’s order for tank munitions
The State Department is pushing for the administration to sell 13,000 tank munitions to Israel, bypassing a congressional review process typically required for arms sales abroad, according to a State Department official and an online post from the Ministry of Defense on Saturday. .
The State Department notified congressional committees at 11 p.m. Friday that it was moving forward with the sale, worth more than $106 million, even though Congress had not yet completed an informal review of a larger order of Israel for tank rounds.
The department invoked an emergency provision in the Arms Export Control Act, the State Department official and a congressional official told The New York Times. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities surrounding the sales. The arms shipments have accelerated and Congress has no power to stop them.
The Ministry of Defense Posted a notice of sale before Saturday afternoon. It said Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had informed Congress on Friday that “an emergency exists requiring immediate sales.”
It is the first time the State Department has invoked the emergency provision for an arms shipment to the Middle East since May 2019, when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo approved arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. a move that was criticized by lawmakers and some career officials within the State Department.
The State Department has used the emergency facility at least twice since 2022 to send weapons to Ukraine to defend against the Russian invasion.
But in the case of the Israel-Gaza war, there is growing condemnation in the United States and abroad of the way Israel is carrying out its offensive. The State Department’s decision to bypass Congress appeared to reflect an awareness of some Democratic lawmakers’ criticism of the Biden administration for supplying weapons to Israel without conditions or oversight.
Israeli airstrikes and ground operations have killed more than 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and about 40 percent of these fatalities were children. The war began on October 7 when Hamas launched cross-border attacks in Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and kidnapping about 240 others, according to Israeli authorities.
Thirteen Democratic senators announced Thursday that they are working on legislation to require more proof from countries that receive U.S. weapons that their militaries are not committing war crimes.
The sale is sure to infuriate Arab leaders, who have sharply criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to block international attempts, including in the United Nations, to pressure Israel for an immediate long-term ceasefire .
“The combination of the United States’ veto of a UN ceasefire resolution, and this accelerated delivery of lethal weapons to Israel, should give rise to serious consideration as to whether the Secretary of State’s repeated claims that the US wants to minimize civilian casualties in Israel, operation in Gaza are genuine,” said Josh Paul, a former State Department official who handled arms sales, referring to Mr Blinken. (Mr. Paul resigned from the organization in October over U.S. arms aid to Israel for its use in the Gaza war.)
The 13,000 rounds are one part of a larger order from Israel of 45,000 rounds of ammunition for Merkava tanks that the State Department wants to approve but is under informal review by two congressional committees that oversee arms sales, congressional officials said. The total order has a value of more than $500 million. The New York Times and Reuters reported on the order from Israel on Friday.
During the informal review process, committee members can ask the State Department questions about the weapons sale, specifically how the weapons will be used and whether the buyer will work to reduce civilian casualties. Once the relevant committees sign off, the State Department will send a formal notification to Congress about the sales.
“A congressional review is a critical step in investigating any major arms sale,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, said in a statement to The Times on Saturday after being asked about the State Department’s expedited approval Affairs. “The Administration’s decision to short-circuit the already short window for a Congressional review undermines transparency and weakens accountability. The public deserves better.”
Although most civilian casualties in Gaza are caused by heavy Israeli airstrikes, some Palestinian journalists have done so as well video footage or photos of what they say are Israeli armored vehicles shooting at civilians.
And on Thursday, the Reuters news agency published this an investigation which stopped an attack by an Israeli tank crew had killed one of its video journalists, Issam Abdallah, in southern Lebanon on October 13. The attack seriously injured an Agence France-Presse photographer, Christina Assi, and injured five other journalists.
“Issam was not in an active combat zone when he was struck,” Reuters said in a statement. “He and his colleagues were together with journalists from other news media, in an area far removed from active conflict.”
Human Rights Watch, which conducted its own investigation, and Amnesty International both called the attack a war crime.
The Israeli military says it is not targeting civilians. In the case of the tank attack that killed Mr Abdallah and injured the others, it was argued that they were in a conflict zone, despite there being no evidence of fighters or fighting around the journalists at the time.
On Thursday, Mr. Blinken said at a news conference that “it is imperative — it remains imperative — that Israel puts a premium on civil protection, and there remains a disconnect between what exactly I said when I was there, the intention to citizens to protect citizens, and the actual results we see on the ground.”