(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) On Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he had expedited the shipment of $4 billion in military aid for Israel, a strong show of support for Israel as it is threatening to restart its genocidal war on Gaza.
“I have signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel,” Rubio said in a statement.
He claimed that President Biden had imposed a “partial arms embargo” on Israel, although Biden provided more military aid to Israel in a single year than any US president in history.
“The decision to reverse the Biden Administration’s partial arms embargo, which wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel, is yet another sign that Israel has no greater ally in the White House than President Trump,” Rubio said.
Rubio said that since President Trump came into office on January 20, his administration has approved $12 billion in arms deals for Israel. “The Trump Administration will continue to use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security, including means to counter security threats,” he said.
The statement came a day after the statement department approved three separate arms deals for Israel worth nearly $3 billion, which includes a huge number of 2,000-pound bombs. The biggest sale, which will likely be funded by US military aid, includes 35,529 MK-84 or BLU-117 2,000-pound bombsand 4,000 I-2000 Penetrator warheads.
Israel has used heavy bombs in strikes on residential buildings that have killed hundreds of civilians. It has also weaponized the bombs as chemical weapons after finding that dropping several of them on tunnels releases deadly carbon monoxide gas.
The second arms deal approved on Friday includes 5,000 1,000-pound bombs and 1,500 JDAM kits to turn the munitions into guided bombs, worth $675 million. A third sale is for $300 million worth of Caterpillar D9 Bulldozers, which Israel uses to demolish Palestinian homes in Gaza and the West Bank.
When approving the three deals on Friday, the State Department claimed it was an “emergency” and bypassed Congress.
“The Secretary of State has determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and defense services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements under Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act,” the Pentagon said.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
