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Biden Greenlights 'Racist' and 'Sociopathic' $8B Arms Sale to Israel
Multiple human rights organizations and international bodies have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza
Jan 04, 2025
The administration of US President Joe Biden announced on Saturday an arms sale to Israel valued at $8 billion, just ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House.
Biden has repeatedly rejected calls to suspend military backing for Israel because of the number of civilians killed during the war in Gaza. Israel has killed more than 45,000 people in Gaza, primarily women and children.
The sale includes medium-range air-to-air missiles, 155mm projectile artillery shells for long-range targeting, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles, 500-pound bombs, and more.
Human rights groups, former State Department officials, and Democratic lawmakers have urged the Biden administration to halt arms sales to Israel, citing violations of US laws, including the Leahy Law, as well as international laws and human rights.
The Leahy Law, named after former Sen. Patrick Leahy, requires the US to withhold military assistance from foreign military or law enforcement units if there is credible evidence of human rights violations.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s most significant Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called Biden’s new $8 billion arms deal “racist” and “sociopathic.”
Multiple human rights organizations and international bodies have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for committing war crimes.
The US is, by far, the biggest supplier of weapons to Israel, having helped it build one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world.
CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said on Saturday:
“We strongly condemn the Biden administration for its unbelievable and criminal decision to send another $8 billion worth of American weapons to the government of indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu instead of using American leverage to force an end to the genocide in Gaza.
“Only racists who do not view people of color as equally human, and sociopaths who delight in funding mass slaughter, could send Netanyahu even more bombs while his government openly kidnaps doctors, destroys hospitals, and exterminates the last survivors in northern Gaza.
“If President Biden is actually the person who approved this new $8 billion arms sale, then he is a war criminal who belongs in a cell at The Hague alongside Netanyahu. But if Antony Blinken, Brett McGurk, Jake Sullivan, and other aides are making these unconscionable decisions as shadow presidents, then anyone with a conscience in the administration should speak up now about their abuses of power.”
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the US accounted for 69% of Israel's imports of major conventional arms between 2019 and 2023.
On the other hand, incoming President-elect Donald Trump has also pledged unwavering support for Israel and has never committed to supporting an independent Palestinian state.
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Why War Criminals Don't Like the ICC
The desire of the “great powers” to safeguard themselves from the enforcement of international law is exemplified by the record of the U.S. government.
Dec 08, 2024
The International Criminal Court’s recent issuance of arrest warrants to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza has stirred up a considerable backlash. Dismissing the charges as “absurd and false,” Netanyahu announced that Israel would “not recognize the validity” of the ICC’s action. President Joe Biden denounced the arrest warrants as “outrageous,” while the French government, after agreeing to support them, reversed its stance.
Thanks to a vigorous campaign by human rights organizations, the International Criminal Court (ICC) became operational in 2002, with the mandate to prosecute individuals for genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and, after 2018, the crime of aggression. Nations ratifying the Rome Statute, the ICC’s authorizing document, assumed responsibility for arresting these individuals and submitting them to the Court for trial. The ICC prosecutes cases only when countries are unwilling or unable to do so, for it was designed to complement, rather than replace, national criminal justice systems.
Operating with clearly delimited powers and limited funding, the ICC, headquartered at The Hague, has thus far usually taken modest but effective action to investigate, prosecute, and convict perpetrators of heinous atrocity crimes.
Although 124 nations have ratified the Rome Statute, Russia, China, the United States, India, Israel, and North Korea are not among them. Indeed, the world’s major military powers, accustomed to the privileged role in world affairs that their armed might usually affords them, have often been at odds with the ICC, for it has the potential to investigate, prosecute, and convict their own government officials.
The desire of the “great powers” to safeguard themselves from the enforcement of international law is exemplified by the record of the U.S. government. Although President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in December 2000, he warned about “significant flaws in the treaty,” among them the inability to “protect US officials.” Refusing to support Senate ratification, he recommended that his successor continue this policy “until our fundamental concerns are satisfied.”
President George W. Bush “unsigned” the treaty in 2002, pressured other nations into bilateral agreements requiring them to refuse surrendering U.S. nationals to the Court, and signed the American Servicemembers Protection Act, authorizing the use of military force to liberate any Americans held for crimes by the ICC.
Although the Bush and Obama administrations subsequently warmed somewhat toward the Court, then engaged in prosecuting African warlords and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, President Donald Trump reverted to staunch opposition in 2018, informing the UN General Assembly that the U.S. government would not support the ICC, which he claimed had “no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority.” In 2020, the Trump administration imposed economic sanctions and visa restrictions on top ICC officials for any effort to investigate the actions of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.
Like the United States, Russia initially signed the Rome treaty. It withdrew its signature, however, after Ukraine appealed to the ICC in 2014 and 2015 to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity that Russia committed in Ukraine. The ICC did launch a preliminary investigation that, after the full-scale Russian military invasion of February 2022 and Russian murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war in Bucha, expanded into a formal investigation. Taking bold action in March 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for the mass kidnapping of Ukrainian children.
Having previously denied wrongdoing in Bucha, the Russian government reacted furiously to the kidnapping charge. “The very question itself is outrageous,” declared Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, and the ICC’s decisions “are insignificant for the Russian Federation.” Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the Russian Security Council and a former Russian president, publicly threatened a Russian hypersonic missile attack on the ICC headquarters, remarking: “Judges of the court, look carefully at the sky.” Subsequently, Moscow issued arrest warrants for top ICC officials.
Meanwhile, the United States has continued its ambivalence toward the ICC. President Joe Biden scrapped the Trump sanctions against the Court and authorized the sharing of information and funding for it in its investigations of Russian atrocities in Ukraine. But he reaffirmed “our government’s longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction” over U.S. and Israeli officials.
The incoming Trump administration seems likely to take a much harsher line. The Republican-led House of Representatives recently passed legislation to sanction the ICC, while Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) called the Court a “dangerous joke,” urging Congress to sanction its prosecutor and warning U.S. allies that, “if you try to help the ICC, we’re going to sanction you.”
Given the policies of the “great powers,” are the Court’s efforts to enforce international law futile?
Leading human rights advocates don’t think so. “This is a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine,” declared Amnesty International upon learning of the Court’s arrest warrants for top Russian officials. “The ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war.” Similarly, Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, stated that the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants for top Israeli officials represented “an important step toward justice for the Palestinian people…Israeli generals must now think twice about proceeding with the bombing and starving of Palestinian children.”
And, indeed, the ICC’s actions have started to bear fruit. Invited to South Africa to participate in a BRICS conference, Putin canceled his visit after his hosts explained that, in light of the arrest warrant, he was no longer welcome. Also, later that year, Russian officials returned hundreds of Ukrainian children to their parents. Although the results of the ICC’s action against Israeli officials are only starting to unfold, numerous countries have promised to honor the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
Even so, the ICC’s enforcement of international criminal justice would be considerably more effective if the major powers stopped obstructing its efforts.
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The True Meaning of ICC Arrest Warrants for US-Backed Israeli Leaders
One remains hopeful that the shifts of global powers will eventually save international law from the hypocrisy and opportunism of the west. But what is clear for now is that the west’s own conflict will only gain momentum.
Dec 02, 2024
The arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are a diplomatic disaster for Israel, reported The Economist, a ‘hard stigma’ for the Israeli leader, wrote The Guardian, and a ‘major blow’, said others.
But a term that many seem to agree on is that the warrants represent an earthquake, though many are doubtful that Netanyahu would actually see his day in court.
The pro-Palestine camp, which as of late represents the majority of humankind, is torn between disbelief, skepticism, and optimism. It turned out that the international system has a pulse, after all, though faint, but is enough to rekindle hope that legal and moral accountability are still possible.
This mixture of feelings and strong language is a reflection of several important and interconnected experiences: one, the unprecedented extermination of a whole population which is currently being carried out by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza; two, the utter failure of the international community to stop the grisly genocide in the Strip; and, finally, the fact that the international legal system has historically failed to hold Israel, or any of the West’s allies anywhere, accountable to international law.
It would not be an exaggeration to claim that the ICC’s indictment of Netanyahu, as a representative of the political establishment in Israel, and Gallant, as the leader of the military class, is also an indictment of the United States.
The real earthquake is the fact that this is the first time in the history of the ICC that a pro-western leader is held accountable for war crimes. Indeed, historically, the vast majority of arrest warrants, and actual detention of accused war criminals seemed to target the Global South, and Africa, in particular.
Israel, however, is not an ordinary ‘western’ state. Zionism was a western-colonial invention, and the creation of Israel was only possible because of unhindered, die-hard western support.
Since its inception on the ruins of historic Palestine in 1948, Israel has served the role of the western-colonial citadel in the Middle East. The entire Israeli political discourse has been tailored and situated within western priorities and supposed values: civilization, democracy, enlightenment, human rights and the like.
With time, Israel became largely an American project, embraced by American liberals and religious conservatives alike.
America’s religious crowds were motivated by the biblical notion that “whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, And whoever curses Israel will be cursed”. The liberals, too, held Israel within a spiritual discourse, although disproportionately favored the classification of Israel as the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, constantly emphasizing the ‘special relationship’, the ‘unbreakable bond’ and the rest.
Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the ICC’s indictment of Netanyahu, as a representative of the political establishment in Israel, and Gallant, as the leader of the military class, is also an indictment of the United States.
It is often reported that Israel would not have been able to carry on with its war, thus genocide, on Gaza without American military and political support. According to the investigative news website ProPublica, in the first year of the war, the US shipped over 50,000 tons of weaponry to Israel.
Mainstream American media and journalists are also culpable in that genocide. They elevated the now war criminals Netanyahu and Gallant, along with other Israeli political and military leaders, as if they were the defenders of a ‘civilized world’ against the ‘barbarians’. Those in the conservative media circles portrayed them as if prophets doing God’s work against the supposed heathens of the South.
They, too, have been indicted by the ICC, the kind of moral indictment, and ‘hard stigma’, that can never be eradicated.
When Karim Khan, the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, originally filed for arrest warrants in May, many were in doubt, and justifiably so. The Israelis felt that their country commanded the needed support to disallow such warrants in the first place. They cited previous attempts, including a Belgian court case where victims of Israeli brutality in Lebanon attempted to hold former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon accountable for the Sabra and Shatila massacre. Not only was the case dropped in 2003, but Belgium was pressured by the US to change its own laws so that they do not include universal jurisdiction in the case of genocide.
The Americans, too, were not terribly worried, as they were ready to punish ICC judges, defame Khan himself, and, according to a recent social media post by US Senator Tom Cotton, ready to ‘invade the Hague’.
In fact, this is not the first time that Americans, who are not signatories of the Rome Statute, thus not members of the ICC, flexed their muscles against those who merely attempted to enforce international law. In September 2020, the US government imposed sanctions on then-Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and another senior official, Phakiso Mochochoko.
Even those who wanted to see accountability for the Israeli genocide were in doubt, especially as pro-Israeli western governments, like that of Germany, stepped forward to prevent the warrants from being issued. Unreasonable delays in the proceedings contributed to the skepticism, especially as Khan himself was suddenly being paraded for supposed ‘sexual misconduct’.
Yet, after all of this, on November 21 the arrest warrants were issued, charging Netanyahu and Gallant with alleged ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ - the other punishable offenses within the ICC jurisdiction being genocide and aggression.
Considering that the world’s highest court, the International Court of Justice, has already found that it is plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide and is currently investigating the case, Israel, as a state, and top Israeli leaders have suddenly, and deservingly so, become the enemies of humanity.
While it is right and legitimate to argue that what matters most is the tangible outcome of these cases - ending the genocide while holding the Israeli war criminals accountable - we must not miss the greater meaning of these earth-shattering events.
The ICJ and the ICC are essentially two western institutions created to police the world by reinforcing the double standards resulting from the post-World War II western-dominated international system.
They are the legal equivalent of the Bretton Woods agreement, which regulated the international monetary system to serve US western interests. Though, in theory, they championed universally commendable values, in practice they merely served as tools of control and dominance for the western order.
For years, the world has been in a state of obvious and irreversible change. New powers were rising and others were shrinking. Political turmoil in the US, Britain and France were only reflections of the internal struggle in the west’s ruling classes. The incredible rise of China, the war in Europe and the growing resistance in the Middle East were outcomes and accelerators of that change.
The emphasis on credibility here is a culmination of the obvious loss of credibility on all fronts.
Thus the constant call for reforms in the post-WWII international system to reflect in a more equitable way the new global realities. Despite American-western resistance to change, new geopolitical formations continued to take place, regardless.
The Gaza genocide represents a watershed moment in these global dynamics. This was reflected in Karim Khan’s language when he requested the arrest warrants, stressing on the credibility of the court. “This is why we have a court,” he said in an exclusive interview with CNN on May 20. “It's about the equal application of the law. No people are better than another. No people anywhere are saints.”
The emphasis on credibility here is a culmination of the obvious loss of credibility on all fronts. This should hardly be a surprise as it was the west, the self-proclaimed champion of human rights, the very political entity that championed, defended and sustained the Israeli genocide.
While one would like to believe that the ICC’s arrest warrants were made exclusively for the sake of the victims of the Israeli genocide, plenty of evidence suggests that the unexpected move was a desperate western attempt at salvaging whatever little credibility it had maintained up to that moment.
The US government, an unrepentant violator of human rights, has maintained its strong position in defense of Israel, shaming the ICC for the warrants, not the Israeli war criminals for committing the genocide.
The conflict in Europe has been much more palpable, however, reflected in the position of Germany, which said it would “carefully examine” the arrest warrants but that it is “hard to imagine that we would make arrests on this basis”.
One remains hopeful that the shifts of global powers will eventually save international law from the hypocrisy and opportunism of the west. But what is clear for now is that the west’s own conflict will only gain momentum. Will those who created the Zionist Israeli menace be the very powers that demolish it? One is doubtful.
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