Alwaght- Democratic senators in the US Congress said they may block shipments of weapons to the Israeli military if the Netanyahu government pressed ahead with a plan to launch an invasion in Rafah in southern Gaza.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, of Maryland, said that blocking US arms sales to Israel is “certainly something that’s on the table” if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launches a large-scale invasion of Rafah, a city where 1.4 million displaced civilians are taking refuge, according to Politico.
The remarks by Hollen come amid pressure from Democrats for President Joe Biden to take a tougher tack in his rift with Netanyahu over Israel’s strategy in Gaza. Netanyahu said in an interview published Sunday that he intends to press ahead with a Rafah invasion in defiance of Biden’s warning that such an offensive would be a “red line.”
“And so if the president’s gonna say something’s a red line, it’s essential the president have an accountability structure,” Van Hollen said in an interview, adding that Netanyahu’s comments show “why it’s all the more important that if we’re going to mean what we say, it’s very important to have … accountability.”
The US arms have been flowing to the Israeli regime since the earlier days of the devastating war on Gaza. Biden himself flew to the Israeli regime on October 18 and met Netanyahu after the latter waged war on Gaza following Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Storm of October 7.
Washington flooded its ally with arms and large-scale of shipments began to arrive on a near-daily basis to the Israeli ports and airports.
Aljazeera reporter Alan Fisher said the visit was a green light to the Israeli regime to step up its carnage in Gaza.
“This visit is a significant display of support for the Israelis. Biden has effectively given Israel the green light to act as it sees fit," he said.
The Washington Post reported last week that the US has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began October 7, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid, US officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing.
Only two approved foreign military sales to Israel have been made public since the start of conflict: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells. Those sales invited public scrutiny because the Biden administration bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority, reported Washington Post.
Taken together, the weapons packages amount to a massive transfer of firepower at a time when senior US officials have complained that Israeli officials have fallen short on their appeals to limit civilian casualties, allow more aid into Gaza and refrain from rhetoric calling for the permanent displacement of Palestinians.
With the large-scale support and a powerful lobby Israel has in the US, the threat of blocking arms delivery to Israeli military hardly takes effect, especially that some senators remain strongly committed to supporting the Israeli crimes, like Republican Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee, who responded to an activist’s question about the deaths of Palestinian children in Gaza by asserting that “we should kill ‘em all”.
