Why we're still arming Israel

In late October 2023, about three weeks into Israel's war in Gaza, the Israeli military bombed a refugee camp called Jabbalia, one of the most densely populated places on earth. "Your witness described to CNN that it felt like the end of the world." "Here they are, children. We are filling up bags with children. We are placing them in bags." "It is horrible. It is horrifying. It is just shocking." Israel was targeting Hamas militants and said it killed several of them in Jabbalia. 23 kids were also killed. The bombs were 2,000-pound American-made bunker busters. The Biden administration eventually stopped selling those to Israel over concerns they would be misused in other highly-populated areas. Now, President Trump wants to send more of those bombs to Israel, and American tax dollars are going to pay for them. Coming up on today, explained from Vox a new book documenting the failures of the Biden administration raises the question of why the U.S. is still arming Israel. 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New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Cheers! This is Today Explained. I'm Akbar Shahid Ahmed. I'm the diplomatic correspondent at the Washington Sun, and I'm the author of Crossing the Red Line, Biden, his advisors at Israel's Warren Gaza. Your book is called Crossing the Red Line, and the red line refers to something specific. What was it and what happened? Presidential Biden's six months into Israel's retaliatory campaign after October 7th clearly said the way that these really offensive in Gaza had gone was excessive. He said that Rafa, the southernmost town in Gaza, which by that point, a March of 2024, these rallies had not yet attacked, needed to be treated differently. It was a place where upwards of one million Palestinians were by done sheltering, and it was the only entry point for goods, humanitarian aid, aid workers, into Gaza that weren't controlled by Israel, a combatant. So President Biden said if these rallies don't create a plan for those civilians in Rafa and treat it differently than the rest of Gaza, I'm going to cut off American weapons. This was major because it represented the Biden administration's own acknowledgment. Their persuasion campaign wasn't enough to change his really behavior, and they might have to threaten actual tangible consequences, like withholding bombs. I focus on that red line moment because what happened then, Noel, is that the Biden administration was feckless, callous, and ultimately, frankly dishonest about what happened in Rafa once Israel went in across that red line in May of 2024. Flames raged through a camp for displaced Palestinians. After an Israeli air strike triggered a massive blaze, civilians burnt alive and children decapitated. As I said, we don't want to see a major ground operation. We haven't seen that at this point. The Biden administration notified lawmakers that it is sending more than one billion dollars in tank ammunition, tactical vehicles, and mortar rounds to Israel. You had the Biden administration both failed to apply the consequences they themselves promised, but actually helped Israel twist the meaning of President Biden's own red line, really undermining the whole chest American credibility, but a lot of hope among Palestinians to a degree among government officials, after State Department and beyond, who itself finally bydons policy might change and truly restrain Israel. Let's go back to October 7th and the beginning of this conflict. Your book is very critical of the Biden administration, and you suggest or posit that Joe Biden's personal feelings about Israel guided his policy after 10/7. What did what does Joe Biden think about Israel? Joe Biden is a professed Zionist. He said that whether or not an Israel-America would have had to create one, whether or not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region. So does an emotional attachment there and a strategic attachment. He sees Israel as a U.S. ally in the Middle East and as beneficial for American interests there and for the kind of broader questions of stability. Was President Biden much different than past U.S. presidents in his approach to Israel? That's what's staggering. Of course, President's going back to Truman, the First President, to recognize the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel. I've largely been supportive of Israel's American ally and certainly going back to the 70s have increased America's entanglement with Israel as a military backer, as a donor of military aid. The Yom Kippur War, when I ordered a huge airlift, which gold in my air said saved Israel. And I said, I will not let Israel go down the tube. And I knew that under the circumstances we could not stand by and that the Soviet Union move in. What President Biden did, and that I think is really going to shape our collective future, is turn and is really military campaign in Gaza into an American campaign. He essentially said the Americans were both providing the weapons that made Israel's massive bombardments of hugely populated Palestinian towns and cities that made that possible. And he turned the U.S. into kind of the guarantor of the whole situation. He said not only will we handle the weapons, we're going to handle the humanitarian aid, we're going to defend Israel on the world stage. So it's a doubling down that I was told by Israeli officials themselves and by many of Biden's own needs, they were surprised by it. They did feel it was going further than what they had seen previously. When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th, how did President Biden and his close advisers talk about the attack? What was distinct? The narrative from President Biden and his advisers like Secretary of State Tony Blinklin, National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Middle East coordinator Brett McMurk was really important in that theme of making this an American war. They started to talk not just about the suffering of Israeli civilians, Israeli hostages, of course, who were taken that day by Hamas led fighters and what's why they acknowledged as a war crime. But they started to frame it in the context of 9/11 and America's own experience. And this was what was so dangerous. You had Biden administration officials say things like this is the equivalent of 10/9/11. From the folks I talk to, you know, people who've studied the region for a long time, that's a frame that's really unhelpful in that you're then missing the political nature. You're then missing the broader context of Israel's Palestine that is distinct and instead turning it into this, you're with us or against us narrative, and this idea that some kind of inconceivable, unimaginable evil has been unleashed. And the only way to respond is with force. Israel launched its war on Gaza immediately to retaliate for the 10/7 attack. And Israel's stated aim was to destroy Hamas. As I understand it very early on, there were people saying Israel's actions in Gaza seemed to be tipping into something different than advertised. What was happening and who was picking up on it? What was alarming to the officials I spoke with was how Israel's language, statements talking of human animals, talking of collective punishment, cutting off a food, water, eat, electricity. We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything will be closed. We are fighting against human animals and we are acting accordingly. How that felt like it was a campaign different than where we're just going to go in and retaliate for this attack. So the people who are picking up on this are diplomats there at the White House, their public diplomacy experts who are saying America is being very quickly attached to these statements which, by October 11th, the UN Secretary General Antonio Guter has already said, resemble the language of Gaza. Of course, Israel denies that it's carried out its genocide. That's kind of where the US officials, I talked to, started to get concerned, no, well because they felt, yes, America is going to stand with its ally in this moment of extreme trauma. And certainly, more than 250 hostages were taking that day among the American citizens. Some kind of policy response is going to happen. Does it have to be this massive inflection of pain on more than two million Palestinians already living in extreme conditions, described as an open air prison, or can it be restrained? So the officials I talked about and officials kind of at the highest levels of the Biden administration, very early considered, should we put restrictions on how the Israelis operate, should we make them sign assurances about how they use American weaponry, which is standard practice, by the way, when America arms countries like Ukraine, none of that happened. Instead, the Biden administration shows a policy that effectively represented a blank check for Israel's retaliation. Now, what in your estimation were Biden's options? What could he have done? Biden and his team now, particularly again, Jake Sullivan, are expressing the idea of in the cold night of morning, perhaps they should have done more. They should have pressured Netanyahu more. I document in crossing the red line that over those 16 months, they were in power. They were repeatedly brought options. So for instance, people inside the administration said, if the top levels wanted us to find a war crime, we could have. Instead, the narrative was to sustain a kind of gray area without a clear confirmation, the alleged war crimes should note Israel denies breaking the laws of war. But the Biden administration was never willing to say even one occurred. And in the red line section that I talk about, I think what's so important is the Biden administration experimented with using their leverage. So on April 1st of 2024, an Israeli strike hit a convoy with the World Central Kitchen Aid Group, an aid group that's extremely well-connected in DC, celebrity chef Jose Andres is personally known to Biden and killed in the strike, seven aid workers among them Westerners, a direct hit on the group's armored vehicle incinerating everything and every one inside. So this was not just a bad luck situation where we dropped the bomb in the wrong place. As this is unfolding, as President Biden is looking at that killing of World Central Kitchen Aid Workers, he for the first time since October 7th calls Prime Minister Netanyahu with a list of specific demands for things Israel must do. Not just folks might have been familiar with the stories of Biden calls Netanyahu angry over the war, he called and said you've got to do this or our policy is going to shift and Netanyahu began to do those things. That shows Biden sort of actually applying the pressure that many in his camp had wanted him to, getting those results and then as I'm told by several very senior officials, it all fell apart. That's where I think we can take lessons from the Biden era of essentially as one official put it to me that the relationship with Israel can work like America's relationship with any other country if policy makers are willing to say we prioritize reducing civilian casualties or we prioritize moving towards peace and stability. The Biden administration said that, but when they had the tools they could have used to do that, they consistently refused to apply them. The book is crossing the red line and that was the author Akbar Shahid Ahmed. In 2024, Biden cancelled a shipment of 2,000 pounds to Israel just before the Rafa offensive. Now Trump wants to send more of those very same bombs to Israel and your tax dollars are going to pay for them. That's when we return. Support for the show comes from What Not. Live streaming can make for great entertainment. It's got proximity, spontaneity and community building in real time. 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With over 1,400 automated tests across 400-plus integrations, Banta collects evidence and monitors your controls the year round. Learn more at vanta.com/explained. Especially if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to vant.a.com/explained. I'm Alex Ward. I'm a national security reporter at the Wall Street Journal. President Trump is trying to get congressional approval for an arms deal with Israel. What's in this package? It's a big package full of weapons. The headline bit of it, of course, is the 2,000-pound bomb sale. The Times says, quote, the proposed sale would include 40,000 one-ton bombs was used by Israel and Gaza and Lebanon has drawn international anger. The proposed $2.8 billion sale of heavy bombs could be the largest of its kind in years. The reason it's standing out is not only just the size of the weapon, but also the fact that the Biden administration restricted that sale during the Gaza War as a political signal. I made it clear that if they go into Rafa, they haven't gone on Rafa yet. If they go into Rafa, I'm not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafa. To deal with the cities, to deal with that problem. So basically go, hey, we know you guys are flattening Gaza. Please be more strategic and more targeted and use a scalpel and not a hammer. That was sort of the one big public rebuke of the way Israel was prosecuting that war. So the fact that Trump is doing this is a sign that there's been a change. The United States has sold weapons to Israel for a long time now. How does this package that Trump wants compared to previous arms sales to Israel? American presidents, Republican Democrat have been selling arms to Israel for years. There was a standing, I believe, $3 billion sale of weapons per year to Israel. And it's sort of a pro-former thing, like the U.S. gives the sale. It goes to Israel. It's what happens. It has become the weapon sales in and of themselves sort of a test of, well, how into the U.S. Israel relationship argue? You'll recall all that uh. former president brokobama was didn't the lot by his critics for seemingly not being pro-Israel enough in large part because he was seeking an aron nuclear deal. Israel didn't like that and so there were questions about what does America under Obama really care about Israel? Well, Kyrsten, this is really not even in dispute, you've never had a worse relationship with Israel. So what does he do? He approves the largest ever at the time Israel weapon sale. Being over a multi-billion dollar gift card for the Pentagon's military arsenal. The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable. That was their way of telling the world, or at least going after critics saying, look, you can't deny America's commitment to Israel. Look at all these weapons we've just sold them. So there are many aspects of the US-Israel relationship, but the weapon sales have been either a flashpoint or a moment of like steady concrete connection between the two countries. This Trump package has been reported as a $2.8 billion sale. Does that mean that Israel goes into its coffers and gives $2.8 billion to like American weapons manufacturers? How does the money actually change hands? What happens? Well, it depends. And we can get really nerdy with it if you want. Sure. The American weapons contracting process is a Byzantine network of nonsense. But there are two broad ways in which the US sells weapons. One is called foreign military sales. It's like what it sounds like. A country wants to buy certain weapons from an American company. Those weapons are tied up in a legal restriction because they're so powerful in advance that requires American approval. And so that's why you think of the US selling the weapons because the US goes, okay, but it's really buying from companies, mostly. Some occasions government conference, but let's simplify and say companies. So in that case, country goes, I want to buy your stuff, great hand over the money that those weapons go. That is the easiest way. Okay. And there's a really wacky system called foreign military finance, FMF. And that is the US gives money to a foreign country for them to then buy American weapons. And you may be wondering, well, why would the US give taxpayer dollars to another country to buy our stuff? I am wondering that. Yeah. Okay. It's a fair question. So a couple of reasons. One is certain countries may not have the money that they need at the time to pay for things, but the US wants to maintain that relationship. Weapon sales are a way to show connection and alliance and partnership between countries. And so even if that country can't make it happen. Okay. Here's some money. You'll get us back at some point. The other bit is to help American companies stay competitive. And so when we have that moment, where we hear people saying, I don't want my taxpayer dollars going to pay for bombs that go to Israel, that is actually what is happening. Yeah. Let's talk about the mechanics if we can. Some Democrats in Congress are opposing this Trump sale very loudly. What does that mean? Can they actually do anything about it? They can make it harder for the sale to go through. But if the Trump administration is genuinely adamant that they have to do this, then it's going to go through. Okay. So long story short, there are informal ways for the leaders of the foreign relations committees in the Senate and the House to basically say, I don't want this sale to go forward. And Gregory Meeks, though, right now the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for a Democrat from New York, he's saying, I don't approve this. The Trump administration has not provided sufficient assurances that these weapons will be used by the Netanyahu government in accordance with U.S. law and with appropriate protections for civilians. Now, Meeks and other Democrats could try to put blocks. They could threaten to not confirm future nominees that this sale goes through or whatever. I mean, there's all kinds of ways they could delay, come up the system. But the lack of a better term, Trump card here is the administration could just claim there's a national security imperative to get this through. They could claim, you know, Iran might be threatening Israel soon or there could be another October 7th type attack. And so they could say that necessitates a sale regardless of what Congress says. There's been a fair amount of tension between Trump and Netanyahu of late. Do we know if Trump is asking for anything in return? Is he extracting anything from Israel for this? It's a good question. I don't know for sure. However, we do know that this is an interesting time for this to be happening. Trump is trying to get Israel to kind of chill in the region on three fronts, in Iran for the moment, against Lebanon, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and in Gaza. And Trump is trying to make a peace deal in Gaza, trying to rebuild that place, trying to get the Hezbollah situation in Lebanon sorted out and also trying to get Israel to hold fire in Iran, which as long as the US does the same. But also we just can't discount the fact that Trump didn't know about this new sale and or not the new sale, but that included the 2,000 pound bombs, right? There's a whole bureaucracy beneath them. There's a whole bunch of staff beneath them. This gets really technical, this gets really intense. And one could imagine that a staffer went, ah, Biden didn't send the 2,000 pound bombs. So why doesn't the Trump administration? Because what is one thing that Trump loves doing things that Biden didn't? And so it could also totally be just kind of a bit of Biden trolling at the end of the day. Hey, how much do you think the relationship between the US and Israel has changed from the Biden administration to the 2nd Trump administration? I mean, not much, right? Right? Yeah. I guess I've seen more continuity than change, with one exception, which is as much as has happened, there has been no American president who has spoken about Israel or about it at the US-Israeli relationship, like Trump has in the 2nd term. And he's gone, he's said some things that are quite shocking that even some Democrats would have wanted Biden to say. He also said to me about Benjamin Netanyahu, if I tell him to do something, he does it. It's fine. He'll do whatever I want him to do. It's a notable thing, and one of the reasons you sort of see some restraint, it looks like in what Netanyahu would prefer to do, is likely because of that. Netanyahu is not to say, I want to be very clear, that Trump has restricted Israel or like in some historic way, because again, there have been two bombing campaigns, but it is notable the language he's using now. Alex Ward is a national security reporter at the Wall Street Journal. Ariana Sputu and Miles Bryan produced today and Jolly Myers edited David Tadashore engineered and Gabriel Donatov checked the facts. I'm Noelle King. It's today explained. [BLANK_AUDIO]