[News] Complicit in genocide: Where Israel gets its weapons from

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Complicit in genocide: Where Israel gets its weapons from
By Ramzy Baroud <https://english.palinfo.com/?p=250012>

Wednesday 27-March-2024 -
https://english.palinfo.com/opinion_articles/complicit-in-genocide-where-israel-gets-its-weapons-from/

Over 9,000 Palestinian women have been killed since the start of Israel’s
war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Mothers have been the
largest civilian population group killed by the occupation state, at an
average of 37 per day since 7 October.

These statistics, from the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza and the Red
Crescent Society respectively, only convey part of the suffering
experienced by 2.3 million Palestinians in the Strip. There is not a single
section of Palestinian society that has not paid a heavy price in the war,
although women and children have borne the brunt of it, constituting over
70 per cent of all victims of the ongoing Israeli genocide.

While these women and their children have been killed at the hands of
Israeli soldiers, it is true to say that they were murdered using weapons
supplied by the US and Israel’s other Western allies. Now, however, we are
told that the world is finally turning against Israel.

The West’s nod of approval to Tel Aviv to carry on with its daily massacres
may soon turn into a collective snub.

This claim was expressed best by the 23 March cover of the Economist
magazine. It showed a tattered Israeli flag, attached to a stick, and
planted in an arid, dusty land. It was accompanied by the headline “Israel
Alone”.

The image, undoubtedly expressive, was meant to serve as a sign of the
times. Its profundity becomes even more obvious if compared with another
cover from the same publication soon after the Israeli military conquered
Arab territories in the war of June 1967, known to Palestinians as the
Naksa. “They did it,” trumpeted the headline back then. In the background
stood an Israeli tank to illustrate the West-funded triumph.

Between the two headlines much in the world and in the Middle East has
changed. To claim that Israel now stands alone, though, is not entirely
accurate, at least not yet.

Although many of Israel’s traditional allies in the West are now openly
disowning its behavior in Gaza, weapons from various Western and
non-Western countries continue to flow, feeding the war machine as it, in
turn, continues to harvest more Palestinian lives. This compels us to ask
if Israel really does stand alone when its airports and seaports are busier
than ever receiving massive shipments of weapons from all corners of the
globe. The answer is simple: not in the least.

Almost every time a Western country announces that it has suspended arms
exports to Israel, a news headline appears shortly afterwards indicating
the opposite. This has happened repeatedly.

Last year, for example, Italy declared that it was blocking all arms sales
to Israel, giving false hope that some Western countries were finally
experiencing some kind of moral awakening. Alas, on 14 March, Reuters
quoted Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto as saying that shipments of
weapons to Israel are continuing, based on the flimsy logic that
previously-signed deals would have to be “honored”.

Another country that is also “honoring” its previous commitments is Canada,
which announced on 19 March that, following a parliamentary motion, it had
suspended arms exports to Israel. The celebrations of those advocating an
end to the genocide in Gaza were just getting started when, a day later,
Ottawa reversed the decision by announcing that it too will honor its
commitments.

This demonstrates that some Western countries continue to preach to the
rest of us with their unsolicited wisdom about human rights, women’s rights
and democracy, but actually have no genuine respect for any of these values.

Canada and Italy are not the largest military supporters of Israel,
however; the US and Germany are. According to the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute, in the decade between 2013 and 2022, Israel
received 68 per cent of its weapons from the US and 28 per cent from
Germany.

The Germans remain unperturbed, even though five per cent of the total
population of Gaza have been killed, wounded or are missing due to the
Israeli war.

Yet, the American support for Israel is far greater, although the Biden
administration is still sending messages to its constituency, the majority
of whom want the war to stop, that the US president is doing his best to
put pressure on Israel to end it.

Although only two approved military sales to Israel have been announced
publicly since 7 October, the two shipments represent just two per cent of
the total US arms sent to Israel. This was revealed by the Washington Post
on 6 March at a time when US media reported a widening rift between US
President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“That’s an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a pretty short
amount of time,” a former senior Biden administration official told the
Post. Jeremy Konyndyk reached the obvious conclusion that the “Israeli
campaign would not be sustainable without this level of US support.”

For decades, US military support for Israel has been the highest of any in
the world. As from 2016, this unconditional support increased exponentially
during the Obama Administration to amount to $3.8 billion per year.

Immediately after 7 October, however, the weapons shipments to Israel
reached unprecedented levels. They included 2,000-pound bombs known as
5,000 MK-84 munitions. Israel has used these bombs to kill hundreds of
innocent Palestinians.

Washington claims frequently to be looking into Israel’s use of US weapons.
According to the Washington Post, though, Biden knew too well that, “Israel
was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were
legitimate military targets.”

In some ways, Israel does “stand alone”, but only because its behavior is
rejected by most countries and peoples around the world. However, it is
hardly alone when its war crimes are being executed with Western arms and
support.

For the Israeli offensive in Gaza to end, therefore, those who continue to
sustain the ongoing bloodbath must end their supply of arms and ammunition.
Then Israel must be held to account for its crimes, as must all of the arms
suppliers, for they are complicit in genocide.

*-Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of the Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of five books. His latest is ‘These Chains Will Be Broken:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons’. Baroud is
a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global
Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).*
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