ON MAY 8TH, in an interview on CNN, President Joe Biden announced that the United States would halt shipments of bombs and artillery shells to Israel if the Israeli military entered the heart of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. Biden also confirmed that the US was currently blocking the delivery of one shipment of 2,000- and 500-pound bombs because “civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs.” This was the president’s first acknowledgement that US-supplied weapons have killed Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Coming from an administration that has repeatedly said there are no conditions on military assistance to Israel, the new posture alarmed some on Capitol Hill. Republican Senator Tom Cotton claimed the president had imposed a “de facto arms embargo” on Israel, and 26 pro-Israel Democrats wrote a letter to Biden lamenting the decision. Meanwhile, Democrats critical of Israel’s conduct, as well as human rights advocates, called Biden’s announcement a good, if insufficient, first step. “President Biden is absolutely right to halt [a] bomb delivery to this extreme, right-wing Israeli government,” said Senator Bernie Sanders. “The US must now use all its leverage.” ….more
