March 7, 2024 (EIRNS)—The Washington Post yesterday published a story reporting that the Biden Administration has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began Oct. 7, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms, and other lethal matériel. These transfers took place without public notice because, the Post reports, each fell under a specific dollar amount that requires the executive branch to individually notify Congress, according to unnamed U.S. officials and lawmakers. The Post does not consider whether these transfers were deliberately broken up into small pieces in order to avoid Congressional notification and oversight.
Taken together, the weapons packages amount to a massive transfer of firepower at a time when senior U.S. 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, the Post says, quoting a number of House Democrats to such effect. “That’s an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a pretty short amount of time, which really strongly suggests that the Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of U.S. support,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior Biden administration official and current president of Refugees International.
