The Wall Street Journal has a long piece today about something I've been puzzled over: Has the US actually slowed down its arms shipments to Israel? But after nearly a thousand words of saying, basically, no, the reporters suddenly toss in this short paragraph:
Since May, the State Department has delayed moving forward with a sale to Israel of new F-15 jet fighters, precision weapons and $1 billion deal for mortar rounds, military vehicles and tank ammunition, U.S. officials said.
So this means...... what? State has delayed approving some new orders for future delivery, but not anything currently in the pipeline? Hmmm.
In any case, the bulk of the article is pretty simple. US officials say that we fast tracked a huge backlog of arms early in the Gaza war and have since resumed a more normal pace. So things have slowed down relative to last October, but nothing has been delayed or held up. Apparently, though, Benjamin Netanyahu thinks otherwise.
Given Joe Biden's attitude toward arming Israel, which has been consistent, uncompromising, and of very long standing, I can't imagine anyone is fibbing about this. There's no way Biden is holding anything up without making it clear and public that he's doing so. Netanyahu's recent outburst sounds like a guy coming down with a case of the Trumpies.
Honestly, my only question is how this exemption managed to stay in place so long. Or, maybe more accurately, how it managed to survive so long on a purely handshake basis without ever being codified into law.
Netanyahu thinks no such thing. This is pure demagogism.
One word: Lebanon. Biden will probably try to save Israel from itself as usual if it goes there but doesn't want that can of worms opened. Follow the rhetoric, the deeds, the arm shipments, they all align: the US doesn't give a hoot about Palestinians but doesn't want an Israeli war with actors that can shoot back with more than big fireworks and small close-combat arms. Because that means US troops when, not if, it goes badly for Israel.
I think this is right. Arming Israel right now isn't about Gaza; it's about letting Hezbolah and Iran know they'd best not start shit right now, which Hezbollah, in particular, is itching to do.
F-15s? I didn't know those were still being made.
Yes, they are still being made for export.
And the current budget calls for the purchase of 18 F-15EX for the USAF. To build to a total of 98, replacing F-15 C and D models in USAF inventory.
Seems like a preemptive strategy to get Biden on the defensive, and give ammunition to his political foes, so we'll have to think twice after public statements relative to this about later delaying orders and deliveries if Israel doesn't live up to their treaty and Geneva Convention obligations (which they have not).
This preemptive deception is also not worthy of a major ally and should itself engender a review of our military aid and relations generally. Bibi is the client with his hand out here, if that isn't made clear, we have a truly massive failure of leadership.
That's what I think too. Netanyahu prides himself as some sort of political genius in owning American politicians. The not-especially-calculated calculus seems to go like this: (a) claim Biden is withholding arms shipments; (b) Biden responds vigorously to prove he is sending arms; (c) Biden loses Michigan and the election to Trump; and (d) Bibi wins.
Prior to Ukraine and now this, I knew of course that the US had a large, too large for me, military industrial complex.
But its one thing to have a "large" military industrial complex, its one thing to have military alliances throughout the world ........
It is quite another thing, at least for me, if said allies cannot continue to fight for like more than a month without US arms shipments. THAT means that as a matter of foreign policy, we almost have lost any ability at neutrality, since I believe one essence of neutrality is that you are not actively arming one side or the other.
Its a degree of control that I do not think serves our interests. Its almost like we can be forced to be a participant.
True, Ukraine and Israel are not apples to apples comparisons.
I just figured there were plenty of other military hardware manufacturers.
Silly me, apparently.
We shouldn't be neutral when it comes to Israel vs Hamas. (Or Ukraine vs Russia.)
We shouldn't be implicated in Israel's war crimes either, Hamas is neither a state actor nor a legitimate representative of the people of Gaza, or Palestinians generally (instead the people of Gaza are the victims of this protection outfit aka mafia which in recent years Israel propped up as a means to keep Palestinians divided, a "leadership" policy that miserably failed and should not result and should not have resulted in mass destruction and massacre of Gaza civilians).
Yes.
And calling it a genocide (as Bowman might have found out, although not his only problem and I'm more in line with him in general than Manchin-lite Latimer) is not helpful. "mass destruction and massacre of Gaza civilians" is accurate.
Israel is the easiest answer. Its one thing to be an ally of Israel, generally. Its another thing to give aid to Israel, and still another thing to sell them weapons.
But it appears that, again, astonishingly to me, that if Israel does not get weapons from US they can't get them anywhere, and even more astonishingly that they don't already have their own arms industry.
Ukraine is different but its more like that it turns out that the entire European Union, despite being directly implicated in Russia's potential appetite for actually invading countries, cannot supply Ukraine easily, on their own. Again, our military production capability is apparently the only gain in town for all of our allies.
In both cases that also means that such aid can be held hostage by US isolationist moronic elements, which is understandable since its our government supplying the weapons.
They do have their own arms industry. Wikipedia says they account for 2.3% of the @global exports of major arms as of 2023. In fact, one of the countries they export arms to is...wait for it...China!
Anyway, my understanding is that with the money we send them, there's a requirement that they spend 3/4 of it on purchases from US companies.
The per capita income in Israel is higher than in the UK or France. We still give them a few billion a year for nothing. They should be buying stuff for cash.
Ukraine is obviously a totally different situation.