US ‘complicit’: Biden under pressure to halt weapons shipments to Israel

Washington: US President Joe Biden is under growing pressure to limit the supply of weapons to Israel as members of his own ranks demand that the US stop being complicit in the murder of innocent people in Gaza.

As Biden declared he was “outraged and heartbroken” by the deaths of seven humanitarian workers killed by Israeli forces this week, Democrats and progressives stepped up calls for the administration to stop sanctioning military aid to Israel unless the nation does more to protect lives.

Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom was killed in an Israeli air strike in central Gaza while helping to deliver food.Credit: LinkedIn

The most damning condemnation came from independent Jewish senator Bernie Sanders, who described the carnage in Gaza as “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the modern history of the world” and told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “stop murdering innocent people”.

“Right now, what Israel is doing is fighting not just Hamas, but going to war against the entire Palestinian people, and this World Central Kitchen horror is just one part of what the Netanyahu war machine is doing,” Sanders told MSNBC, in reference to the charity convoy that was struck while delivering aid to starving people in Gaza this week.

“We’re talking about people who today don’t have food, don’t have water, don’t have medical supplies, don’t have fuel. It is horrible, it is inexcusable, and it’s got to end right now – and the United States cannot continue to be complicit in the horror that is taking place now.”

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden in 2020Credit: AP

Sanders – along with Democrat senators Tim Kaine, Elizabeth Warren and Chris Murphy – were among several members of Congress who wrote to the White House on March 22, arguing that Israel was clearly thwarting humanitarian assistance to Gaza, which violated a US directive requiring recipients of American military aid to comply with international human rights law.

This was followed by a letter from six House Democrats a day later, who urged Biden to make clear to Netanyahu that “so long as Israel continues to restrict the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the continued provision of US security assistance to Israel would constitute a violation of existing US law and must be restricted”.

But Monday’s strike on the convoy of aid workers has intensified pressure all the more, after seven people were killed in the tragedy – including Australian Zomi Frankcom and one American citizen.

The incident took place as the aid workers were travelling through a “deconflicted zone” in armoured cars carrying the group’s logo. The founder of the charity, Jose Andres, said the group was “systematically” targeted “car by car.”

Three British citizens, one Polish national and one Palestinian were also killed in the attack, which Israel’s top military commander said had been a “mistake” and the result of a “misidentification”.

People inspect the site where World Central Kitchen workers were killed in Deir al-Balah.Credit: AP

Biden is said to have been privately enraged by the incident and issued a public statement overnight taking aim at Israel’s military tactics in a conflict that has killed nearly 200 aid workers so far.

“This is not a standalone incident,” he said, in his strongest statement yet against the Netanyahu government’s operations.

“The conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed. This is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in Gaza has been so difficult – because Israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians.”

However, despite calling for “accountability” and demanding more humanitarian assistance into Gaza, the administration says it has no plans, at this stage, to change its policy towards Israel.

Since the war began on October 7, the US has reportedly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid.

One option for the US to apply pressure is to use the supply of bombs and jets it supplies to Israel as leverage for Netanyahu to scale back its military assault in the Gaza Strip.

However, the White House says it is waiting for Israel’s full investigation before it decides what action, if any, to take in response to the tragedy. It has also ruled out conducting an investigation of its own to determine if US weapons contributed to the attack.

But as casualties mount, so too does the political pressure ahead of November’s election.

At the Democratic primaries in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, Biden faced another protest vote over his support for Israel, with more than 47,000 voters choosing the “uninstructed” option on their ballot papers instead of picking the president as their preferred presidential nominee.

A volunteer holds a sign outside a polling station in Dearborn, Michigan.Credit: Bloomberg

While this was not as resounding as the 100,000-plus voters who voted “uncommitted” in the Michigan primary race earlier this year, it was nonetheless viewed as a warning sign in a critical battleground state Biden only narrowly won against Donald Trump in 2020.

“This president must decide if loyalty to Netanyahu is worth delivering Trump the election in November,” said Democrat lobbyist and former Ohio senator Nina Turner.

David Axelrod, a former policy advisor to Barack Obama, said: “the murder of seven heroic World Central Kitchen workers should be a bright red line”.

“Israel has the right to defend itself against barbaric acts of terrorism, not indiscriminately kills innocents of valiant men and women who are working to save them from starvation,” he wrote on X.

And at a meeting between Biden and Muslim community leaders at the White House on Tuesday, one Palestinian- American doctor, Thaer Ahmad, walked out in protest over the administration’s stance in Gaza.

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