The U.S. has sent nearly two shipments of weapons to Israel on average every day since it began its genocide in Gaza on October 7, according to new figures from the Israeli military.

This represents over 50,000 tons of military equipment, the military said, or over 150 tons of equipment per day as Israel relentlessly slaughters Palestinians and their children in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. This includes equipment like armored vehicles, munitions and ammunition.

The latest figures are yet another show of the astonishing amount of weapons sent by the Biden administration to aid in Israel’s genocide. The U.S. has sent Israel billions in military assistance and funding to procure U.S.-made weapons; just last week, the U.S. approved a whopping $20 billion sale of weapons to Israel as it threatens war across the Middle East.

Pro-Palestine activists in the U.S. have, for months, been demanding that officials stop sending weapons to Israel. Public opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the majority of Americans think that the U.S. should stop sending weapons.

  • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    the leahy law would prevent arms aid to specific foreign military units found in violation; it’s never going to prevent arms shipments to an entire country. so you can’t use any single shipment (as in the tank ammo shipment from 2023) to say biden broke the leahy law due to other unrelated israeli units.

    the real issue imo is that apparently the state department is not applying the leahy law appropriately in isreal - that is where we should be focusing attention.

    https://www.justsecurity.org/96522/israel-leahy-law/

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Due to the difficulty of tracing unit-level recipients of large amounts of U.S. security assistance to some countries, including Israel, in 2019 Congress added the following measure to the Leahy law, Section 620M of the Foreign Assistance Act:

      If assistance to a foreign security force is provided in a manner in which the recipient unit or units cannot be identified prior to the transfer of assistance, the Secretary of State shall regularly provide a list of units prohibited from receiving assistance pursuant to this section to the recipient government and . . . such assistance shall only be made available subject to a written agreement that the recipient government will comply with such prohibition.

      The State Department has never delivered a list of ineligible Israeli units to the government of Israel. Not once.

      That means they’re violating the Leahy Law…

      By going around congress, Biden can not try to hide behind them, and makes himself clearly personal accountable for that specific violation.

      Now, do I think it’s realistic that anyone from either party is held accountable for the multitude of Leahy violations?

      No, Israel owns too many of our politicians from both parties for many one to be held accountable until anyone that’s ever taken Israeli money in exchange for preferential treatment is kicked out of the Dem party and we then get super majority numbers.

      Obviously we could try to fix republicans too, but we need to put on our own oxygen mask first.

      The best way to accomplish this is push for getting money out of Dem primaries like Bernie is attempting.