As tensions mount in the Middle East with the Iranian regime threatening an “imminent” attack against Israel, 48 Republican senators called on the Biden administration to lift its “partial arms embargo against Israel.”
“Your fear of escalation has left Israel exposed and our enemies emboldened,” the senators wrote.
The strongly worded letter, whose lead signatories are Sens. Tom Cotton, R-AR, and James Risch R-ID, demands that Biden lift an arms embargo that he openly admitted he had imposed on the Jewish state in a May interview with CNN, saying he disapproved over the way the weapons were being used.
Yet, “when Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly raised the issue of weapons-withholding in June, your administration adamantly denied the accusation,” the letter to President Biden stated.
The senators called out the administration for taking actions “that run counter to our long history of robust military cooperation with Israel and cast doubt upon the reliability of the United States as a long-term security partner.”
“Your actions also violate the will of Congress as expressed in the recent supplemental [aid package] that funded emergency military support to Israel,” the letter said. It went on to harshly criticize the president for throwing up all kinds of bureaucratic roadblocks to prevent the shipping of the weapons.
“All the while, you were deliberately delaying the delivery of weapons, ammunition, and equipment to Israel. These include 120 mm tank ammunition, 120mm mortar ammunition, light tactical vehicles, air to air missiles, F-15s, F-35 engines, joint direct attack munition kits, 2,000- pound bombs, rifles, and guided missile systems,” the letter continued.
The senators referenced the recent Hezbollah atrocity, an attack on Northern Israel that killed 12 Druze children on July 27. The missile used in the attack was made in Iran, Israel said.
The letter urged President Biden “to use every available emergency authority to expedite the physical delivery of all weapons and ammunition to Israel that have been approved by Congress.”
“While your administration delays,” the senators write, “Hamas continues to wage war against Israel, the Houthis continue to attack in the Red Sea, and Hezbollah continues its onslaught in northern Israel.”
Vigilant Senators
‘Embargo’ is not a word the Biden administration used regarding its withholding of weapons meant for Israel. If anything, the White House would have chosen to keep its actions under the public radar, using various delay tactics to keep the shipments from Israel.
If not for the pro-active vigilance of several senators, these tactics might have succeeded.
The senators’ letter on Friday followed several earlier ones to President Biden by Senator Roger Marshall (Kansas), Joni Ernst (Iowa), James Risch (Idaho) and Tom Cotton (Arkansas), demanding the immediate delivery of weapons that Congress had approved for Israel.
In a June 20 letter, Sen. Cotton accused the administration of using Washington’s complex approval process for foreign military sales to play a “bureaucratic sleight-of-hand” with arms sales to Israel, a JNS article revealed.
“This allowed the White House to slow-walk a broad variety of weapons while claiming to have only formally paused a single shipment of bombs,” the article quoted Sen. Cotton as saying.
“The Arms Export Control Act requires the administration to notify Congress before sending weapons to a foreign country,” Cotton wrote in his letter to President Biden. “Your administration has manipulated this requirement by withholding this formal notification to Congress of approved weapons sales [to Israel].”
“Your administration can then claim that the weapons are ‘in process’ while never delivering them,” he emphasized.
‘Give Us the Tools Faster and We’ll Finish the Job Faster’
In June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, too, called out the Biden administration for the weapons delay, saying, “It’s inconceivable that in the past few months the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel.”
“Israel, America’s closest ally, is fighting for its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies,” Netanyahu said, urging the Biden administration to release the weapons shipments.
Speeding up the delivery of U.S. aid and arms sales to Israel was also a centerpiece of the Israeli prime minister’s address to a joint session of Congress in July.
“Fast-tracking U.S. military aid can dramatically expedite an end to the war in Gaza and help prevent a broader war in the Middle East,” Netanyahu told the assembly.
“In World War II, as Britain fought on the frontlines of civilization, Winston Churchill appealed to Americans with these famous words: ‘Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job,’” Netanyahu recounted.
“Today, as Israel fights on the frontline of civilization, I too appeal to America: ‘Give us the tools faster, and we’ll finish the job faster.’”
House Resolution Aimed at Forcing President Biden to Release Weapons
According to Middle East expert Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute, the administration’s embargo consisted of three categories: large bombs that have been deliberately withheld, and shipments that have been approved by Congress but which the Biden administration is withholding by not informing Congress that they are ready to be shipped.
A third category consists of arms transactions that the Biden administration is blocking between the State of Israel and private arms manufacturers in the United States.
In mid-May, “the House passed a Republican-led bill to condemn President Joe Biden’s approach to Israel and force him to send arms shipments to the U.S. ally,” ABC News reported.
The final vote was 224-187, with 16 Democrats going against House Democratic leadership and President Biden and voting for the bill.
The measure reflected the negative political fallout from Biden’s shelving of weapons shipments to Israel and trying to force Israel to halt its plan to invade Rafah where Hamas battalions are entrenched.
Republicans accused Biden of betraying Israel while bowing to political pressure.
The House bill, titled Israel Security Assistance Act, was largely symbolic as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced he would not bring it to the floor for a vote, after the White House said the president would veto it. It nevertheless stirred up a hornet’s nest in Congress.
The legislation urged the “expeditious delivery” of defense material to Israel, and reaffirmed Israel’s right to self-defense. The bill’s mechanism for enforcement was shockingly bold: it called for “the withholding of funds for certain administration officials such as secretary of defense and secretary of state, until the weapons under discussion are delivered,” ABC News reported.
“GPS Bombs” Would Have Reduced Casualties
Senator Lindsay Graham, R-S.C. endorsed the resolution which enumerates the Biden Administration’s many promises of ironclad support to Israel. He notes the irony that despite these stirring pronouncements, “since January 2024, the Biden Administration has effectively paused the sale of up to 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions.”
“These kits offer GPS directions to bombs so they are accurate within approximately 10 feet,” Graham pointed out. “They are exactly the precision weapons that reduce civilian casualties in urban warfare. Mr. Biden’s supposed moral stance will make the Israeli operation in Rafah more bloody and costly.”
In a press conference ahead of the vote, Johnson criticized Schumer and Biden for opposing the bill, ABC News related. “It is clear that Biden and Schumer have turned their back on Israel,” Johnson said. “They are carrying water for Iran and its proxies.”
Johnson also said the administration was “defying the will of Congress.”
“We want the president to hear this loud and clear … This is a catastrophic decision with global implications. It is obviously being done with political calculation and we can’t let this stand,” the Speaker said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell issued his own condemnation of the “embargo” against Israel on the Senate floor.
“Mr. Biden’s threat to pull the plug on the main U.S. ally in the Middle East is a watershed moment that will radiate across the world. Other allies will wonder what they’re risking if they cast their lot with the U.S.,
“Nations on the fence will look elsewhere for their own security,” he added. “And our enemies will be emboldened.”
Senate Letter Coincides with Order to Increase US Military Presence in Middle East
The Senate letter that demanded the release of weapons meant for Israel coincided with reports that Washington is in the process of beefing up the US military presence in the Mideast with warships and elite fighter jets.
An administration official said these were “defensive measures, with the goal of “de-escalating tensions.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who ordered the additional support Friday, also called for the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to end its Pacific tour and head to the region, following reports that an Iranian attack is imminent.
Officials stressed that “the overall aim is to turn the temperature down in the region, deter and defend against [imminent] attacks, and avoid regional conflict,” Jonathan Finer, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
The Iranian regime suffered a massive blow to its prestige when Hezbollah leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran, because the assassination exposed Iran’s poor defenses against attack, as well as serious security failures.
Teheran has repeatedly vowed retaliation over the deaths of top Hamas and Hezbollah officials. These are being taken very seriously across the region, with millions of Israeli citizens bracing for the attack.
Failure and Folly from Obama Era
While some have speculated about a pre-emptive Israeli strike against Iran, the Biden administration has reportedly indicated that Israel cannot count on American involvement if it goes on the offensive against Iran.
The ambiguity and dual messaging coming from the White House—blocking crucial military aid from Israel while increasing US military forces in the region —has experts speculating about who might be influencing policy in the Biden administration besides Joe Biden.
Some sense Obama’s fingerprints on the White House’s excessive cautiousness toward Iran.
“To the extent that the administration admits it is withholding arms, it justifies its actions by expressing concern to the American public over “civilian deaths” in Gaza. Privately, however, it has its eyes locked like a laser on the Lebanese-Israeli border where [Iran-backed Hezbollah] has been shooting rockets into Israel,” writes Michael Doron of the Hudson Institute in Tablet.
“If a full-scale war kicks off in the north, the Obama-Biden policy of achieving “equilibrium” in the Middle East by integrating Iran and its proxies into the regional order, comes crashing down,” he writes.
“That policy [of playing up] to Iran was a complete flop during the Obama administration,” argues Jonathan Tobin in JNS. “It failed to prevent Teheran from obtaining a weapon of mass destruction and instead actually guaranteed that it would get one.”
Under Obama, negotiations with Teheran repeatedly ended with American surrender and appeasement while the Iranian regime was enriched and emboldened. Yet the Biden administration, instead of learning from the failures of the previous administration, continued to pursue Iran as if it could snatch some semblance of “victory” from the jaws of defeat.
When Joe Biden took office, “his foreign policy team spent more than two and a half years chasing after the Iranians to get them to agree to an even weaker nuclear agreement than the one Obama considered his crowning achievement, Tobin writes.
Not Even a Thumbs Up
The obsession of certain State Department officials with the failed Obama policy might explain the strangely muted response from the White House after Israel assassinated Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander who planned the massacre against Druze children in Northern Israel.
Shukr had been wanted for decades by the U.S. for a 1983 attack on U.S. Marines in Beirut that killed 241 American troops and 58 French personnel. By 2017, the mass murderer had risen to seniority in Hezbollah ranks and was one of the primary links between IRCG leader Qasem Soleimani—a terrorist mastermind killed in a 2020 U.S. pinpoint strike—and Hezbollah’s military apparatus.
The United States that year announced a $5 million reward for information about Shukr’s whereabouts, vowing to bring him to justice.
Many expected the White House to respond favorably to Israel’s assassination of this ruthless terrorist whose hands were stained with the blood of so many Americans. But there was only silence from the Biden administration when the news broke.
A day after Shukr was killed in a targeted strike, top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated while in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Hamas has been responsible for the deaths of more than 30 Americans killed in terrorist attacks.
The death of the group’s leader drew no comment from the Biden administration, other than “the killing [of Haniyeh] doesn’t help talks over a potential ceasefire in Gaza.”
Not even a thumbs up.
Attacks on U.S. Forces Met with Silence
Silence and excessive caution also mark the White House’s response to Iranian-backed militias that have in recent weeks resumed launching attacks on bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria.
These attacks resumed after a lull of several months following a missile strike on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three American soldiers in January. US military authorities launched a few retaliatory strikes in return, insufficient to deter the militias.
An Iranian-backed group has regularly claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were retribution for Washington’s support of Israel in the war in Gaza and were aimed at pushing U.S. troops out of the region.”
In the latest incident this week, several US personnel were injured in a rocket attack at the Ain al-Asad air base in western Iraq, Fox News reported, citing US defense officials. A defense official reported that at least two Katyusha rockets were fired towards the base, which houses US-led forces.
As of this writing, silence from Washington.
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Congressmen Unveil “Bunker Buster Act”
Reps. Brian Mast, R-Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., announced legislation on Tuesday aimed at halting the Iranian regime’s nuclear program, JNS reported.
The two congressmen presented “the Bunker Buster Act,” which would allow the U.S. president to provide Israel with the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb, a colossal explosive capable of destroying underground nuclear facilities.
The weapon weighs 30,000 pounds, measures over 20 feet long and is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet underground before exploding, the article said.
The Air Force described the bomb as “a weapon system designed to reach and destroy our adversaries’ weapons of mass destruction located in well-protected facilities. It is more powerful than its predecessor, the BLU-109.”
Rep. Gottheimer called the bill “critical to America’s global fight against terrorism.”
He said that “while Iran and its terrorist proxies continue to wreak havoc and chaos around the world, we must ensure they can never threaten the U.S. or our allies with a nuclear weapon.”
The legislation would require the U.S. Department of Defense to conduct a study with Israel to produce a report for Congress on whether transferring “bunker buster” bombs would serve America’s national security interests.
According to the language of the bill, the president of the United States does not automatically possess the authority to give Israel this weapon. Following the completion of the study, congressional authorization is required for President Biden (or the winner of the 2024 presidential contest), to give the weapon to Israel.
“We cannot sit silently while the ayatollah and his minions plot to wipe Israel off the map,” said Rep. Mast, who urged that “Israel must have the tools necessary to protect its people against Iranian aggression.”
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White House Partially Reverses Course
In a surprise twist, a report in Israel Hayom Monday stated “the US now intends to send the weapons shipment which it previously delayed.”
“The shipment includes MK-83 bombs, weighing half a ton each, but it is not clear whether the US will send MK-84 bombs,” used by Israel (until the US embargo), for many of its operations against Hamas. The second half of the shipment includes 1,800 MK-84 bombs weighing about a ton each, and is still held by Washington,” the article said.
The report says “Israel now believes that the US will remove the limitations on the shipment of heavy weapons, if Israel promises not to use them in specific areas of Gaza.”
Was it the harsh letter from almost the entire Republican conference that prompted Washington to change course? Or was it perhaps the House resolution that garnered 224 votes from both sides of the aisle and the scandal that was beginning to brew?
Israel Hayom also reported that the United States has transferred to Israel weapons which were held in US weapons storehouses in Israel, including air-to-air missiles used to intercept UAVs.
The Biden administration also intends to send additional munitions to its storehouses in Israel, so that in case of need, it will be possible to transfer them quickly, the article said.
