Casar, 19 Democrats Demand End to “Offensive” Weapons Transfers to Israel

A group of Democrats led by Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), the new head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has sent a letter to the Biden administration urging officials to follow their own policies and stop “offensive” military transfers to Israel amid its genocide in Gaza.

In a letter, the lawmakers say that the administration’s failure to adhere to its own 30-day deadline to improve conditions in Gaza is not only worsening suffering for Palestinians in Gaza, but also risking the U.S.’s national security by “sending a message to the world that the U.S. will apply its laws, policies, and international law selectively.”

“Last month, as the 30-day deadline arrived, your Administration said it would not suspend military assistance to Israel because it determined that the Netanyahu government took some steps to improve the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza. While Israel made nominal progress in some areas, it overwhelmingly failed to meet the minimum standards laid out in the Administration’s own letter,” the letter says.

The letter was signed by 20 House Democrats, including Representatives Cori Bush (Missouri), Summer Lee (Pennsylvania), Ilhan Omar (Minnesota) and Rashida Tlaib (Michigan).

In October, the Biden administration sent Israel a list of humanitarian conditions that Israel must meet within 30 days in order to continue receiving the full breadth of U.S. military assistance. Israel overwhelmingly failed to meet the demands, and instead of bettering humanitarian conditions, Israel worsened them, with humanitarian aid entry hitting record lows in that period.

In a report put out by a coalition of seven major humanitarian groups near the end of the deadline, the groups detailed how Israel “took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza” in the 30-day period.

But, last month, the Biden administration said that it would not be imposing any of the conditions it said it would, claiming that officials have not assessed that Israel is in violation of U.S. law — despite numerous humanitarian aid organizations on the ground in Gaza and legal experts saying that Israel has flagrantly violated both international and domestic laws regarding human rights.

In fact, the U.S. government is currently being sued over such claims. A group of Palestinians in Palestine and the U.S. filed a lawsuit this week saying that, by continuing to send Israel weapons, the U.S. government is violating the Leahy Law, which prohibits military transfers to foreign units committing human rights violations.

“Simply put, the Netanyahu government has not complied with the United States’ repeated requests to allow humanitarian aid to be delivered safely to innocent people,” the lawmakers wrote. “Under U.S. law, the United States government must suspend offensive weapons to any nation that fails to meet these basic standards.”