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military aid
What Will US Wars Look Like in Trump's Hands?
The team that Trump has assembled seems to offer some hope for an end to fighting in Ukraine, but little to none for peace in the Middle East and a rising danger of a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Nov 13, 2024
When Donald Trump takes office on January 20th, all his campaign promises to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and almost as quickly end Israel’s war on its neighbors will be put to the test. The choices he has made for his incoming administration so far, from Marco Rubio as Secretary of State to Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Elise Stefanik as UN Ambassador make for a rogues gallery of saber-rattlers.
The only conflict where peace negotiations seem to be on the agenda is Ukraine. In April, both Vice President-elect JD Vance and Senator Marco Rubio voted against a $95 billion military aid bill that included $61 billion for Ukraine.
Rubio recently appeared on NBC’s Today Show saying, “I think the Ukrainians have been incredibly brave and strong when standing up to Russia. But at the end of the day, what we’re funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion… I think there has to be some common sense here.”
On the campaign trail, Vance made a controversial suggestion that the best way to end the war was for Ukraine to cede the land Russia has seized, for a demilitarized zone to be established, and for Ukraine to become neutral, i.e. not enter NATO. He was roundly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats who argue that backing Ukraine is vitally important to U.S. security since it weakens Russia, which is closely allied with China.
Any attempt by Trump to stop U.S. military support for Ukraine will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from the pro-war forces in his own party, particularly in Congress, as well as perhaps the entirety of the Democratic Party. Two years ago, 30 progressive Democrats in Congress wrote a letter to President Biden asking him to consider promoting negotiations. The party higher ups were so incensed by their lack of party discipline that they came down on the progressives like a ton of bricks. Within 24 hours, the group had cried uncle and rescinded the letter. They have since all voted for money for Ukraine and have not uttered another word about negotiations.
Any attempt by Trump to stop U.S. military support for Ukraine will undoubtedly face fierce opposition from the pro-war forces in his own party, particularly in Congress, as well as perhaps the entirety of the Democratic Party.
So a Trump effort to cut funds to Ukraine could run up against a bipartisan congressional effort to keep the war going. And let’s not forget the efforts by European countries, and NATO, to keep the U.S. in the fight. Still, Trump could stand up to all these forces and push for a rational policy that would restart the talking and stop the killing.
The Middle East, however, is a more difficult situation. In his first term, Trump showed his pro-Israel cards when he brokered the Abraham accords between several Arab countries and Israel; moved the U.S. embassy to a location in Jerusalem that is partly on occupied land outside Israel’s internationally recognized borders; and recognized the occupied Golan Heights in Syria as part of Israel. Such unprecedented signals of unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s illegal occupation and settlements helped set the stage for the current crisis.
Trump seems as unlikely as Biden to cut U.S. weapons to Israel, despite public opinion polls favoring such a halt and a recent UN human rights report showing that 70% of the people killed by those U.S. weapons are women and children.
Meanwhile, the wily Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is already busy getting ready for a second Trump presidency. On the very day of the U.S. election, Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who opposed a lasting Israeli military occupation of Gaza and had at times argued for prioritizing the lives of the Israeli hostages over killing more Palestinians.
Trump seems as unlikely as Biden to cut U.S. weapons to Israel, despite public opinion polls favoring such a halt and a recent UN human rights report showing that 70% of the people killed by those U.S. weapons are women and children.
Israel Katz, the new defense minister and former foreign minister, is more hawkish than Gallant, and has led a campaign to falsely blame Iran for the smuggling of weapons from Jordan into the West Bank.
Other powerful voices, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a “minister in the Defense Ministry,” represent extreme Zionist parties that are publicly committed to territorial expansion, annexation and ethnic cleansing. They both live in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
So Netanyahu has deliberately surrounded himself with allies who back his ever-escalating war. They are surely developing a war plan to exploit Trump’s support for Israel, but will first use the unique opportunity of the U.S. transition of power to create facts on the ground that will limit Trump’s options when he takes office.
The Israelis will doubtless redouble their efforts to drive Palestinians out of as much of Gaza as possible, confronting President Trump with a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in which Gaza’s surviving population is crammed into an impossibly small area, with next to no food, no shelter for many, disease running rampant, and no access to needed medical care for tens of thousands of horribly wounded and dying people.
The Israelis will count on Trump to accept whatever final solution they propose, most likely to drive Palestinians out of Gaza, into the West Bank, Jordan, Egypt and farther afield.
Israel threatened all along to do to Lebanon the same as they have done to Gaza. Israeli forces have met fierce resistance, taken heavy casualties, and have not advanced far into Lebanon. But, as in Gaza, they are using bombing and artillery to destroy villages and towns, kill or drive people north and hope to effectively annex the part of Lebanon south of the Litani river as a so-called “buffer zone.” When Trump takes office, they may ask for greater U.S. involvement to help them “finish the job.”
The big wild card is Iran. Trump’s first term in office was marked by a policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran. He unilaterally withdrew America from the Iran nuclear deal, imposed severe sanctions that devastated the economy, and ordered the killing of the country’s top general. Trump did not support a war on Iran in his first term, but had to be talked out of attacking Iran in his final days in office by General Mark Milley and the Pentagon.
Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, recently described to Chris Hedges just how catastrophic a war with Iran would be, based on U.S.military wargames he was involved in.
Wilkerson predicts that a U.S. war on Iran could last for ten years, cost $10 trillion and still fail to conquer Iran. Airstrikes alone would not destroy all of Iran’s civilian nuclear program and ballistic missile stockpiles. So, once unleashed, the war would very likely escalate into a regime change war involving U.S. ground forces, in a country with three or four times the territory and population of Iraq, more mountainous terrain and a thousand mile long coastline bristling with missiles that can sink U.S. warships.
But Netanyahu and his extreme Zionist allies believe that they must sooner or later fight an existential war with Iran if they are to realize their vision of a dominant Greater Israel. And they believe that the destruction they have wreaked on the Palestinians in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the assassination of their senior leaders, has given them a military advantage and a favorable opportunity for a showdown with Iran.
By November 10, Trump and Netanyahu had reportedly spoken on the phone three times since the election, and Netanyahu said that they see “eye to eye on the Iranian threat.” Trump has already hired Iran hawk Brian Hook, who helped him sabotage the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018, to coordinate the formation of his foreign policy team.
So far, the team that Trump and Hook have assembled seems to offer some hope for peace in Ukraine, but little to none for peace in the Middle East and a rising danger of a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Trump’s expected National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is best known as a China hawk. He has voted against military aid to Ukraine in Congress, but he recently tweeted that Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear and oil facilities, the most certain path to a full-scale war.
Trump’s new UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, has led moves in Congress to equate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, and she led the aggressive questioning of American university presidents at an anti-semitism hearing in Congress, after which the presidents of Harvard and Penn resigned.
So, while Trump will have some advisors who support his desire to end the war in Ukraine, there will be few voices in his inner circle urging caution over Netanyahu’s genocidal ambitions in Palestine and his determination to cripple Iran.
If he wanted to, President Biden could use his final two months in office to de-escalate the conflicts in the Middle East. He could impose an embargo on offensive weapons for Israel, push for serious ceasefire negotiations in both Gaza and Lebanon, and work through U.S. partners in the Gulf to de-escalate tensions with Iran.
But Biden is unlikely to do any of that. When his own administration sent a letter to Israel last month, threatening a cut in military aid if Israel did not allow a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the next 30 days, Israel responded by doing just the opposite–actually cutting the number of trucks allowed in. The State Department claimed Israel was taking “steps in the right direction” and Biden refused to take any action.
We will soon see if Trump is able to make progress in moving the Ukraine war towards negotiations, potentially saving the lives of many thousands of Ukrainians and Russians. But between the catastrophe that Trump will inherit and the warhawks he is picking for his cabinet, peace in the Middle East seems more distant than ever.
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57 Groups to Senate: Vote to Block Weapons for Israel
"Despite clear evidence showing that Israel is committing war crimes and blocking humanitarian aid, the U.S. is still unconscionably selling billions of dollars of offensive weapons to Israel," said one advocate.
Nov 11, 2024
Ahead of historic U.S. Senate votes on military aid for Israel that are expected next week, dozens of civil society groups on Monday launched a grassroots campaign aimed at pushing lawmakers to support blocking more than $20 billion in offensive weapons transfers.
Demand Progress, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), Action Corps, and the Center for Constitutional Rights were among the groups that launched the No More Weapons for Israel's War campaign, asking the groups' millions of supporters across the U.S. to demand that their senators to support the joint resolutions of disapproval (JRD) that are scheduled for a vote this month.
The JRDs were introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) in September. The resolutions could block transfers of certain U.S. weapons, such as joint direct attack munitions (JDAMs), tanks, and artillery shells, which have been linked to civilian casualties in Gaza since Israel began its assault on the enclave more than 13 months ago.
"For the last 13 months, the Biden administration has refused to use the leverage at its disposal to end to the war in Gaza and alleviate an ever-increasing humanitarian catastrophe," said Cavan Kharrazian, senior policy adviser for Demand Progress. "Despite clear evidence showing that Israel is committing war crimes and blocking humanitarian aid, the U.S. is still unconscionably selling billions of dollars of offensive weapons to Israel."
Kharrazian noted that passing the JRDs is "even more urgent now," following the election last week of President-elect Donald Trump, a "notorious ally" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Sanders pointed out when he introduced the JRDs in September that the weapons that would be impacted by the vote have been shown by "a mountain of documentary evidence" to be killing and maiming civilians in Gaza.
Amnesty International submitted a report to the federal government earlier this year detailing several Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure including homes in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used U.S. weapons to kill large numbers of civilians.
An attack using JDAMs manufactured by Boeing killed 43 civilians, nearly half of whom were children, in October 2023. Four strikes used bombs and other weapons made in the U.S. and killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children.
A Guardian analysis last month also found that U.S. weapons were used by the IDF when it conducted an airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 115.
The Biden administration has repeatedly claimed that it is pushing Israel to limit civilian casualties, but has been condemned by human rights advocates and progressive lawmakers for continuing to provide offensive weapons despite mounting evidence that more civilians are being killed each day. Last week, the United Nations said it had found that 70% of people killed by the IDF in Gaza between November 2023 and April 2024 were women and children, despite persistent claims by the U.S. and Israel that it is targeting Hamas fighters.
"It's time for the Israeli government to take U.S. demands about de-escalation, civilian protection, and humanitarian aid seriously," said Tori Bateman, advocacy director for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "If the United States wants to see the Israeli government change its behavior, then it must change too by being willing to leverage arms sales to achieve a cease-fire, protect civilians, and serve the U.S. national interest. Senators should vote 'yes' to block these transfers of offensive weapons to Israel."
Progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups have pointed out in recent months that $12.5 billion in U.S. military aid has continued flowing to Israel even as the Israeli government has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, resulting in the spread of disease and widespread hunger, with U.N. experts saying in July that the enclave was facing famine.
Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act prohibits the U.S. from providing weapons to a country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian aid.
"We are grateful Sen. Sanders has introduced the joint resolutions of disapproval and the historic vote to take place in November to block the sale of offensive arms to Israel," said Yasmine Taeb, legislative and political director for MPower Change Action Fund. "Sending any offensive arms to Israel is a violation of U.S. and international humanitarian law. We urge senators to co-sponsor and vote YES on the JRDs."
Hassan El-Yayyab, legislative director for Middle East policy for FCNL, called Israel's war in Gaza "not just a humanitarian catastrophe but a mass atrocity carried out with U.S. bombs and military support, funded by American taxpayers."
"It's long overdue for Congress to hold a public debate and vote on ending U.S. complicity in the mass killing and starvation of Palestinian civilians," said El-Yayyab. "These joint resolutions of disapproval mark a historic moment—the first major effort in Congress to block offensive arms sales to Israel in United States history. Senators must vote yes and press the Biden administration to use all forms of U.S. leverage to finally end the war in Gaza, bring hostages home, and de-escalate tensions across the Middle East."
In a separate statement on Monday, Chip Gibbons of the civil liberties group Defending Rights & Dissent noted that "war crimes" committed by Israel include "the deliberate assassination of Palestinian journalists, making our government complicit in the worst attack on free expression rights anywhere in the world today."
"As a domestic civil liberties group, we don't take stances on international issues," said Gibbons, the group's policy director. "But when our government provides weapons that are used to violate human rights, that implicates our core mission."
The group's executive director, Sue Udry, applauded Sanders for introducing the JRDs and urged every member of Congress to support them.
"It's well past time to hold our government accountable to our own laws," said Udry.
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Sanders Leads New Senate Effort to Stop Flow of US Arms to Israel
"There is extensive evidence that these systems are being used in violation of U.S. and international law," said the senator.
Sep 18, 2024
Demanding that the Biden administration follow the lead of several close U.S. allies in recent months, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday announced his intention to take action on the Senate floor to stop the flow of American weapons to Israel.
The Vermont independent said in a statement that he plans to file Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRD) regarding the sale of offensive weapons to the Middle Eastern country, which for nearly a year has bombarded civilian infrastructure and blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, killing more than 41,000 Palestinians and pushing the enclave into famine.
The JRD is the only congressional mechanism that can prevent weapons sales from moving forward, and after months of demanding the Biden administration end military support for Israel, Sanders said that "Congress must act to save lives, uphold U.S. and international law, and stand up for U.S. interests."
HuffPost journalist Akbar Shahid Ahmed reported that other lawmakers, including Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) are involved in the JRD effort, "a key factor in how much support this can get" before a vote, which would "most likely" take place in November.
After a Hamas-led attack last October, said Sanders on Wednesday, Israel did not "have the right to wage an all-out war against the Palestinian people, which is what Prime Minister Netanyahu's extremist government has done."
"As a result of Israel's blocking of humanitarian aid into Gaza, many thousands of children there face malnutrition and even starvation," said the senator. "Sadly, and illegally, much of the carnage in Gaza has been carried out with U.S.-provided military equipment. Providing more offensive weapons to continue this disastrous war would violate U.S. and international law."
Sanders noted that continuing to export weapons to Israel—like the $20 billion in arms sales that President Joe Biden approved in August—would violate U.S. laws including the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), as U.S. weapons have been directly linked to attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Palestinian civilians.
As Amnesty International reported in April, the IDF used U.S. bombs and other weapons in several attacks, including four strikes in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that killed at least 95 civilians, including 42 children last December and January.
Sanders noted that other weapons included in the August arms sales approval—Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), totaling $262 million; and 120mm tank rounds, totaling $774.1 million—were "particularly concerning, given their indiscriminate use in Gaza."
The senator cited an Israeli JDAM strike on October 31, 2023 in Jabalia, which killed at least 126 civilians, including 69 children. He also pointed to the 120mm tank rounds used by the IDF in Gaza City on January 29, 2024 in an attack that killed six-year-old Hind Rajab and two paramedics.
"There is extensive evidence that these systems are being used in violation of U.S. and international law," said Sanders, citing the administration's own report pursuant to National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20), which stated that "it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its [international humanitarian law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm."
"In light of this reality," said Sanders, "it is inappropriate to move ahead with these sales."
The senator noted that U.S. allies including the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands are among those that have restricted weapons sales to Israel, with officials citing the risk that the transfers could make their governments complicit in violations of international law.
"The sales would reward Netanyahu's extremist government, even as it continues to cause massive destruction in Gaza, undermine the prospects of a cease-fire deal that would secure the release of the hostages, and advance its effort to illegally annex the West Bank," said Sanders. "We must end our complicity in Israel's illegal and indiscriminate military campaign, which has caused mass civilian death and suffering."
James Zogby, founder of the Arab American Institute, applauded Sanders' plan to file the JRD, calling it a "critically important step to block $20 billion in U.S. arms to Israel."
"Genocide in Gaza, annexation in the West Bank, and expansion of the war in Lebanon will continue as long as Israel's impunity continues," said Zogby. "We must act now."
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