Mixed messages coming from US on Israel weapons sales

By YONAH JEREMY BOB, REUTERS

Published: MARCH 30, 2024 21:58

Updated: MARCH 30, 2024 22:28

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken address the media at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, in January. It's incumbent upon Israel to avoid any further deterioration in the relationship with the US, the writer maintains. (photo credit: YOAV ARI DUDKEVITCH/FLASH90) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken address the media at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, in January. It's incumbent upon Israel to avoid any further deterioration in the relationship with the US, the writer maintains.

(photo credit: YOAV ARI DUDKEVITCH/FLASH90)

The US sends mixed signals on arms to Israel. Gen. Brown says some requests denied, but leaks show ongoing future sales to reassure Israel.

Mixed messages are coming from the US on weapons sales to Israel with anonymous leaks to multiple media outlets over the weekend highlighting large previously signed deals that are still going through and the US’s top general publicly saying he had repudiated certain weapons requests.

Late Thursday, Gen. Charles Brown, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said Israel had not received every weapon that it had asked for, in part because US President Joe Biden’s administration was not willing to provide at least some of them.

Washington gives $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel, its longtime ally. The United States has been rushing air defenses and munitions to Israel, but some Democrats and Arab American groups have criticized the Biden administration’s steadfast support of Israel, which they say provides it with a sense of impunity.

US-Israel weapons dynamics

“Although we’ve been supporting them with capability, they’ve not received everything they’ve asked for,” said Brown.

“Some of that is because they’ve asked for stuff that we either don’t have the capacity to provide or are not willing to provide, not right now,” Brown added while speaking at an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group.

An Israeli soldier fires his weapon during the ongoing ground operation of the Israeli army against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip as seen in a handout picture released by the Israel Defense Forces on November 13, 2023. (credit: IDF/Handout via REUTERS)

However, in a not-so-veiled statement balancing Brown’s public statement, top Washington officials leaked to The Washington Post and then other media over the weekend a reminder of a list of ongoing weapons sales that the US has approved for the future and that are still going forward.

The timing of the second leaked statement appeared designed to balance out concerns about how Israel and its supporters would perceive what appeared to be a loud and unusual public rebuke by Brown.

The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, said sources, who confirmed a report in The Washington Post.