Ask Congress to Make Military Aid to Israel Conditional
Ask your Congress members to suspend or cut military aid to the Israeli government until it ends its systematic violation of Palestinian human rights and complies with international law. Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II, having received about $135 billion through 2017 (p.2/33). Since 1948, the Israeli government has repeatedly violated UN Security Council resolutions and international humanitarian law in its repression of Palestinians. During most of that time it has used weapons made and supplied by the United States and funded by American taxpayers.
In 2016 the U.S. and Israeli governments signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) covering the ten years FY2019 to FY 2028. Under the terms of the MOU, the U.S. would give Israel at least $38 billion in military aid, or $3.8 billion a year. This is the biggest military aid package the U.S. has ever given to any country. It replaces the 10-year package of $30 billion expiring in 2018, negotiated by the Bush Administration in 2007 (p.2/37).
Delaware's Senator Coons is an original co-sponsor of a 2018 bill to legislatively authorize the $38 billion aid package, The United State-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018, S. 2497. This bill passed both the House and Senate but with different terms that were never resolved, so it died in the 115th Congress. It was re-introduced as part of S.1, the first bill introduced in the Senate in 2019, which contained controversial anti-BDS legislation and did not pass the House. A new bill, The United State-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2020, S. 3176, was introduced in January 2020, again with Senator Coons as original co-sponsor.
For years, Israel has received more U.S. military aid each year than all other countries combined. For fiscal year 2019, the Administration's request for foreign military financing for Israel equals about 61% of the total U.S. foreign military aid budget request (p.12/33).
You make a difference. Call and email your members of Congress and ask them to make U.S. military aid to Israel conditional on Israel's compliance with U.S. law.
1. Israel breaks U.S. law by persistently violating human rights with U.S.-supplied weapons.* Israel violates U.S. law by using U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons to illegally appropriate Palestinian land, destroy Palestinian farms and homes, and attack Palestinian civilians under occupation.
Suspension of aid for violations by specific military units can be waived if Israel takes "credible steps to bring those accountable to justice". But is it doing so? It appears not, according to a 2020 U.N. Human Rights Council statement reviewing the case of children. "Civil society organisations have documented the deaths of 155 Palestinian children by Israeli Security Forces using live ammunition or crowd-control weapons since 2013. Only three indictments on criminal charges have been issued for offences directly tied to those killings. In one case, the charges were subsequently dropped. In the second case, the responsible soldier reached a plea deal and was sentenced to nine months jail for death by negligence. In the third case, a soldier was convicted of not obeying orders and sentenced to one month in military prison." See also "Killing of 6th Palestinian Child in 2020 was 'Grave Violation of International Law'. But liberal Zionists want U.S. to keep funding U.S. soldiers."2. The U.S. continues to give Israel unconditional military aid. The U.S. will give the Israeli government unconditional military aid of at least $3 billion each year through 2018, and at least $3.8 billion a year starting in 2019, despite the fact that the Israeli government has ignored repeated requests by the U.S. to halt all illegal settlement activity.
3. Request hearings and suspend aid. Ask our members of Congress to request hearings on the Israeli government’s apparent violations of U.S. laws designed to prevent U.S. complicity in continued gross human rights violations. Don’t treat Israel as an exception. If Israel is in violation, suspend military aid as the law requires. U.S. taxpayers should not have to subsidize illegal settlements and the ongoing violation of the human rights of millions of people.
*The U.S. is required to end or suspend military aid to countries which violate:
The U.S. Foreign Assistance Act (1961). Section 116 states, "Human Rights - (a) No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights..." (p. 59, p.67/507 of pdf). The “Leahy Law”, introduced in 1997 and made permanent as The Leahy Amendment (2007) to the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, allows the U.S. to suspend aid to specific military units rather than countries: “No assistance shall be furnished under this chapter or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.” (22 U.S. C. 2378d) The prohibition can be waived if the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the foreign country is taking credible steps to bring those responsible to justice.
The U.S. Arms Export Control Act. Section 2754 limits the use of U.S. weapons to "internal security" or "legitimate self-defense". "Legitimate self-defense" does not include an occupier's use of weapons against the civilian population it is occupying. That is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The same points were made in a letter to Congress sent by fifteen Christian church leaders on October 5, 2012. The leaders represent ten denominations: the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Evangelical Lutheran Church, United Methodist Church, American Friends Service Committee, Mennonite Central Committee, Orthodox Peace Fellowship, American Baptist Churches, United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, United Church of Christ, Conference of Major Superiors of Men, and the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns.