Michael Arria
Mondoweiss / August 7, 2023
“We should make it clear…that US military assistance is not to be used to aid and abet settler violence,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen in a recent interview. Is the Biden administration listening ?
An increasing number of prominent Democrats are suggesting that the United States begin conditioning military aid to Israel in an effort to shift of its current government.
The U.S. currently gives Israel over $3.8 billion in military aid every year.
This week Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen (D) told The Guardian that conditioning could prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from further annexing portions of the West Bank or compel his government to crack down on settler violence against Palestinians.
“President Biden should get more personally engaged in addressing these issues. We should make it clear, for example, that US military assistance is not to be used to aid and abet settler violence, and not to be used for the purpose of expanding settlements or protecting those who are erecting illegal outposts,” said Van Hollen.
The Senator wants the Biden administration to look at 1997’s “Leahy Law,” which prohibits the United States from sending assistance to foreign militaries that carry out human rights abuses. Van Hollen recently returned from Israel and the illegally-occupied West Bank, where he says he witnessed Israel engaging in a “land grab” of Palestinian territory.
“When you see it first-hand it underscores how alarming the situation is now with this ultra-rightwing Netanyahu government that includes known racists like [Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel] Smotrich, and clearly shows that they’re determined to totally take over the West Bank,” he said.
Furthermore, in his new book, Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East, former White House official Steven Simon goes beyond calls for conditioning aid and questions whether the relationship with Israel continues to serve any strategic interest for the United States.
Simon, who served as the U.S. National Security Council senior director for the Middle East and North Africa under the Obama administration, tells Haaretz that, “Israel has the enviable power to go its own way while still extracting resources from the United States.” He says that Netanyahu, “might be viewed by historians as strategically great for Israel because he succeeded in achieving independence from the United States while at the same time manipulating American domestic politics. That’s not nothing.”
There has also been a spate of recent op-eds where establishment journalists broach the issue of cutting aid, including The New York Times’ Tom Friedman and Nick Kristof. Kristof’s piece (which is titled “With Israel, It’s Time to Start Discussing the Unmentionable”) relies on interviews from a number of former diplomats connected to the U.S./Israel relationship.
“Israel can afford it, and it would be healthier for the relationship if Israel stood on its own two feet,” two-time ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk told him.
“Under the right conditions and in a galaxy far, far away, with U.S.-Israeli relations on even if not better keel, there would be advantages to both to see military aid phased out over time,” says former State Department Middle East analyst Aaron David Miller.
“Israel’s economy is strong enough that it does not need aid; security assistance distorts Israel’s economy and creates a false sense of dependency,” says former U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer, “Aid provides the U.S. with no leverage or influence over Israeli decisions to use force; because we sit by quietly while Israel pursues policies we oppose, we are seen as ‘enablers’ of Israel’s occupation.”
Polling shows that Democratic voters firmly support cutting military aid. A 2019 Data for Progress survey found that 46% of Americans support conditioning aid to Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. That number was 65% among Democrats. A 2021 Chicago Council Survey ended up with similar results. 50% supported conditioning aid with 62% of Democrats backing such restrictions.
Despite the increasing calls for a reassessment of policy, the leadership of the Democratic party shows no signs of budging on the issue. The only candidate to consistently bring up the issue on the 2020 campaign trail was Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. While running for president, Biden called the idea a “gigantic mistake.”
Rep. Betty McCollum’s H.R.3103 would block Israel from using U.S. taxpayer dollars to detain Palestinian children, destroy Palestinian homes, or expand its policies of annexation. However, it only has 28 co-sponsors and still lacks a Senate companion bill.
Pro-Israel lobbying groups have spent millions pushing Democrats that staunchly oppose cutting aid. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) are currently leading a delegation of 24 House Democrats to Israel on a trip organized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
“With this trip, House Democrats reaffirm our commitment to the special relationship between the United States and Israel, one anchored in our shared democratic values and mutual geopolitical interests,” said Jeffries in a statement.
This week it was also revealed that Home Depot co-founder and GOP mega-donor Bernie Marcus had donated $1 million to AIPAC’s United Democracy Project (UDP), the SuperPac that the group has used to intervene in Democratic primaries. UDP now has nearly $9 million a little over a year from the national election.
Michael Arria is the U.S. correspondent for Mondoweiss
