It appears that the policy up to now is being used as a stick, and the message seems clear, even if it isn’t effective: We don’t want to stop giving you weapons, but your actions are making it politically difficult to continue doing so.
The question is if Kamala will push harder than Biden, or maintain this status quo. Congress could always pass a law, but there seems to be a hard line of Israel support in Congress, so that seems very unlikely.
I wanted to add: 15% of Israel’s defense budget comes from the U.S., and a lot of that is grants to buy U.S. weapons. Even if the U.S. turned the money tap off (which Congress would never do), Congress has the power to approve any sale it wants, so Israel would probably just keep getting the weapons using their own cash.
Congress would essentially need to embargo Israel to prevent more U.S. weapons from getting to them, which is never going to happen, even if ALL the Democrats wanted it, because the Republicans control the House.
So, the fewer Republicans in the house, the more leverage a non-republican president has. Vote those fuckers out
This lays the facts out pretty well, and it’s from a year ago.
https://www.justsecurity.org/90010/a-law-and-policy-guide-to-us-arms-transfers-to-israel/
It appears that the policy up to now is being used as a stick, and the message seems clear, even if it isn’t effective: We don’t want to stop giving you weapons, but your actions are making it politically difficult to continue doing so.
The question is if Kamala will push harder than Biden, or maintain this status quo. Congress could always pass a law, but there seems to be a hard line of Israel support in Congress, so that seems very unlikely.
I wanted to add: 15% of Israel’s defense budget comes from the U.S., and a lot of that is grants to buy U.S. weapons. Even if the U.S. turned the money tap off (which Congress would never do), Congress has the power to approve any sale it wants, so Israel would probably just keep getting the weapons using their own cash.
Congress would essentially need to embargo Israel to prevent more U.S. weapons from getting to them, which is never going to happen, even if ALL the Democrats wanted it, because the Republicans control the House.
So, the fewer Republicans in the house, the more leverage a non-republican president has. Vote those fuckers out