It was uncontroversial when the Obama administration signed a deal with Israel to provide weapons for a decade. Little thought was paid to how they might one day be used.
The Obama administration sealed a major military agreement with Israel in 2016 that committed the United States to giving the country tens of billions of dollars in arms over 10 years.
The United States and Israel have had tight military relations for decades, stretching across multiple Democratic and Republican administrations. Israel has purchased much of its critical equipment from the United States, including fighter jets, helicopters, air defence missiles, and both unguided and guided bombs, which have been dropped in Gaza.
Since the Hamas attacks, State Department officials have continued to authorise arms shipments to Israel that are tranches of orders, or what officials call “cases”, approved earlier by the department and by Congress – often years ago, and often for delivery in batches over a long period. Officials describe this step as pro forma. The authorisations have occurred almost daily in recent weeks and are in line with Biden’s policy of giving full support to Israel.
The State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which manages foreign defense relationships and arms transfers, typically acts within two days of hearing about a buyer’s fulfilment request to tell the Defence Department to issue the letter. If defence officials decide to fill the case by placing an order with a US weapons maker, the assembly and shipment would normally take years.
The Biden administration is pressuring the Democratic lawmakers to approve the order, after which the State Department would officially notify it. The order is one of the biggest from Israel in years. The first jets would not be delivered until 2029 at the earliest, one official said.If the administration tried to ram an order past informal congressional review, lawmakers could seek to block that through a super-majority joint resolution during the formal notification period.
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