Democratic Congressional calls to halt arms sales to Israel picks up steam

The number of Congressional Democrats calling for a temporary or permanent halt of arms sales to Israel over its Gaza policies is picking up steam.

Some 56 Democratic Representatives have signed onto a letter, first circulated last week, calling for US President Joe Biden to halt arms transfers to Israel until completion of the investigation into the IDF airstrike that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen while they were delivering food in Gaza.

The Israeli airstrike that killed seven @WCKitchen aid workers, including an American citizen, was absolutely horrifying and unacceptable. Today, I called on the Biden Admin to withhold offensive arms transfers to Israel with @RepMcGovern, @Janschakowsky and 37 other colleagues. pic.twitter.com/7wKExWP6hT

— Rep. Mark Pocan (@RepMarkPocan) April 5, 2024

“Our letter to withhold offensive arms transfers to Israel picked up steam today. We added 16 signers for our final push – 56 Members of Congress total. A shift is underway!,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI).

He co-authored the letter together with Representatives James McGovern (D-MA) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).

Letter says amount of aid not enough for Palestinian civilians

Although it focused on the WCK incident, it urged Biden to hold Israel to a stricter set of standards for arms shipments and to halt such transfers if Israel failed to comply.

“We strongly urge you to reconsider your recent decision to authorize the transfer of a new arms package to Israel and to withhold this and any future offensive arms transfers until a full investigation into the [IDF] airstrike [on the WCK aid workers] is completed.

“If this strike is found to have violated US or international law, we urge you to continue withholding these transfers until those responsible are held accountable.

“We also urge you to withhold these transfers if Israel fails to sufficiently mitigate harm to innocent civilians in Gaza, including aid workers, and if it fails to facilitate – or arbitrarily denies or restricts – the transport and delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the representatives stated.

Biden’s efforts to increase the delivery of aid into Gaza will not be sufficient to meet the needs on the ground, according to the letter.

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who is the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Tuesday he would not approve a massive arms transfer to Israel until he has more information about how Israel would use the weapons.

“I’m waiting for assurances,” Meeks told CNN. “I want to make sure that I know the types of weapons and what the weapons would be utilized for,” he said.

Reuters reported on April 1 that President Joe Biden’s administration was weighing whether to go ahead with an $18 billion arms transfer package for Israel that would include dozens of F-15 aircraft.

US law requires Congress to be notified of major foreign military sales agreements and allows it to block such sales by passing a resolution of disapproval over human rights violations or other concerns, although no such resolution has ever passed and survived a presidential veto.

An informal review process allows the Democratic and Republican leaders of foreign affairs committees to vet such agreements before a formal notification to Congress, which means any of them can hold up an agreement for months or longer by asking for more information. Meeks is one of those four officials.

Meeks said there has been “enough of the indiscriminate bombing” in Israel’s campaign in Gaza. “I don’t want the kind of weapons that Israel has to be utilized to have more death. I want to make sure that humanitarian aid gets in. I don’t want people starving to death, and I want Hamas to release the hostages,” Meeks said.

Meeks said he would decide whether or not he would approve the arms transfer after he had more information.

The Democratic calls to halt arms sales come as the Israel-Hamas war enters its seventh month, and concern has spiraled over the high Palestinian civilian death toll. Hamas has reported over 33,000 deaths. Israel has said that over 13,000 of those fatalities are combatants.

The war was sparked by the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel, in which over 1,200 people were killed and 253 were taken hostage.

Israel is seeking to beef up its already formidable fleet of warplanes not just for its continuing fight against Hamas but to ward off any further threat from the Tehran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah on its northern border as well as from Iran, its regional arch-foe.

Reuters contributed to this report.