What would happen if the US were to withhold offensive weapons from Israel? • FRANCE 24 English

What would happen if the US were to withhold offensive weapons from Israel? • FRANCE 24 English

for more we can speak to our foreign editor kin goresan hello to you kvan um if the US were to withhold these offensive weapons that it would be sending to Israel how much of a blow would that be for Benyamin Netanyahu well uh so far at least according to Israel’s Chief military spokesman uh this would not prevent them from carrying out their operation in Rafa or elsewhere that was the statement but that’s in the short term it probably doesn’t impact Israel too much but it is very serious signal from the United States which is by far the largest supplier of military aid to Israel as we see uh on this graphic here the US uh in the period between 2019 and 2023 uh amounted to 69% of Israel’s weapon way in front of Germany which is the second supplier and a suspension of military aid to Israel hasn’t happened in more than 40 years the last time was back uh during the Reagan years when he suspended or banned the sale of cluster bombs uh now it has to be said also that uh US military aid to Israel is very diverse back in 2016 the US signed a memorandum of understanding covering the period between 2018 and 2028 and they agreed on$ 38 billion dollar in direct military aid $33 billion in Grants that would help the Israelis by US military equipment and 5 billion for missile defense systems of course the most famous one being the Iron Dome and that is something that Joe Biden made very clear in his interview that he would not touch he said we are not walking away from Israel’s ability to defend itself we’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war specifically in Gaza and they’re not even considering withholding all offensive weapons they’re really focused right now at least on those heavy bombs that cause extreme damage extreme casualties in very densly populated areas like Gaza so so far they’re not considering stopping for example tank ammunition or other types of artillery so right now it’s still very small sliver of the US military a to Israel uh but the signal that it sends is very very important uh later this Friday the US Secretary of State Anthony blinkin is going to submit a report to Congress about the conduct of Israeli troops in Gaza any idea what it might say well uh the state department has to give its assessment on two things one is whether Israel followed international law and US law in how it used Us weapons in Gaza and the other is whether it violated humanitarian law by possibly impeding the flow of humanitarian Aid in uh Gaza and it’s expect expected to include an assessment on Israel but also other countries that are currently using Us weapons uh in different conflicts around uh the world there’s already been a delay it was supposed to be given on Wednesday we’re expecting it to be delivered today that’s still uh not clear and it shows uh the difficulty for the Biden Administration when it comes to Israel and their assessment and the reporting according uh to uh oxio is that uh this report is going to be highly critical of Israel’s conduct of its war in Gaza but we’ll stop short of saying that Israel violated humanitarian law or US law or International uh law and that’s because they need to strike a careful balance if they say that Israel uh didn’t do anything wrong that would spark a backlash especially from the leftwing of the democratic party that is already asking for uh the US to condition at least if not halt all Us weapons going uh to uh Israel there were uh more than 80 uh Democrats on the hill who wrote a letter to uh Joe Biden to say that uh they believe that there was evidence that Israel was at least violating humanitarian uh law but if Joe Biden and the administration decide uh that yes Israel did violate whether it’s international law or US law uh then uh that could put more pressure on Joe Biden to go further on stopping those weapons for from being sold to uh the Israelis there are existing us laws that ban uh the US from selling weapons to countries that are accused of violating human uh humanitarian law and it could also politically be a problem because then there would be a backlash uh from uh Republicans who are already very critical of the Halt and those uh Mega bombs and also uh the middle the pro-israeli Democrats who are not seeing this as a good sign for the US is really relationship all right K thank you very much K gorgeous Donnie our foreign editor

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that a U.S. threat to withhold some weapons would not deter Israel from expanding its offensive in Gaza. A limited Israeli operation earlier this week captured the Gaza side of Rafah’s border crossing with Egypt, throwing humanitarian operations into crisis. What would happen if the US were to withhold offensive weapons from Israel? Answer by FRANCE 24 international affairs editor Kéthévane Gorjestani.
#Israel #UnitedStates #Gaza

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