The State Department is divided over whether Israel is using American-provided weapons in accordance with international law ahead of a fast-approaching deadline next week for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make a determination to Congress.
There is not unanimity about whether to accept Israel’s assurances about this as “credible and reliable,” a department official said. Israel was required to make those assurances to the US under a national security memorandum issued by President Joe Biden in February.
The memorandum requires all countries receiving US weapons to make assurances that they are using them “in a manner consistent with all applicable international and domestic law and policy, including international humanitarian law and international human rights law.”
Under that memorandum, Blinken must tell Congress by May 8 whether he has certified the assurances to be credible and reliable.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Israel was required to make those assurances to the US under a national security memorandum issued by President Joe Biden in February.
Several hundred officials from Western countries, including some from the US, have previously raised concerns that their governments may be complicit in war crimes in their support of Israel’s fight against Hamas.
“We don’t comment on leaked documents, especially those purporting to contain classified information,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Progressives are growing increasingly frustrated with Biden’s support for Israel, as protests over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza spread across the US, most notably on college campuses, where protesters have decried the stance of “Genocide Joe.” But the president on Sunday again reaffirmed his “ironclad” commitment to Israel in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The White House could slow military provisions, curtail monetary assistance, or drastically ratchet up the public pressure on Netanyahu if the US concludes Israel is impeding aid to Gaza and not adhering to human rights laws.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this month, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that to his knowledge, “we don’t have any evidence of genocide being created” by Israel during its war in Gaza.
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