What does the halting of a recent shipment of US weapons to Israel mean for the war in Gaza?

Brian Finucane: Particularly with these 2,000-pound bombs, given the blast radius from these weapons and the amount of damage they’re capable of causing, the administration seemed to regard them as being particularly inappropriate for any operations in Rafah. The administration, on background yesterday, characterized this as a shot across the bow, and also indicated that it did not anticipate this had any immediate operational impact on Israeli activity in Gaza. So, this is a notable and long overdue step. But we’ll see. I mean, we’ll see whether this is the only step or whether the administration takes further steps, particularly if Israel moves forward with further operations in Rafah without an adequate plan to protect civilians. And I just say that it’s hard to vision what such a plan would look like, given the number of civilians at issue here.

Absolutely. And it’s useful to put this in context of the United States providing a tremendous amount of weaponry to Israel and including since October. And so, there’s been tenuous flow of US weapons, tank shells, artillery shells, thousands of air delivery munitions, being shipped both in United States, but also from a storehouse within Israel itself. And in contrast to arms transfers to Ukraine, for example, there’s relatively little transparency on the exact types and quantities being transferred. The administration is not issuing fact sheets on a regular basis the way it does for Ukraine.

It certainly has happened before. And in some ways it’s surprising it hasn’t happened before now with this administration. So, going back to the Reagan administration, President [Ronald] Reagan paused the transfer of cluster munitions to Israel when the US government concluded that Israel was using such weapons to attack civilians in Lebanon. The Obama administration paused transfers of precision guided bombs to Saudi Arabia after it came to the conclusion that Saudi Arabia was using those weapons to attack civilians in Yemen. And the Biden administration, itself, paused offensive weapons transfers to Saudi Arabia in 2021 upon taking office due to concerns that US weapons were being used to attack civilians.

It is a very modest step, and certainly there are those even within the Democrat Party on the Hill calling for much more. And I think it’s worth recognizing that there are conditions in US law, in the policies implemented by the administration itself, that apply to arms transfers and military assistance to all states, not just Israel. But those standards have not been enforced. Those conditions have not been enforced since October.

I expect that the conclusions of this report to be pretty watered down. And I don’t think it’s going to be, you know, presenting the administration with inconvenient conclusions or inconvenient facts. In terms of the timing, I wouldn’t read too much into the delay. It could be a few days. I’ve dealt with congressional reports that were years late. But certainly this one, given what we’re seeing on the ground in Gaza, is subject to heightened scrutiny.

Well, it seems that they’re trying not to, as a matter of fact. There have been various statements since October about the degree to which the US government is scrutinizing, or not scrutinizing, the conduct of the IDF [Israel Defense Force] in Gaza with respect to law of war compliance. My impression from my conversations I’ve had with people in the administration is that there is some sort of assessment going on, but it is not with a view to assessing whether there are war crimes being committed, or whether IDF soldiers or leaders have criminal intent. And indeed, we’ve seen some pushback by the administration with respect to rumors that the International Criminal Court may be considering arrest warrants for Israeli leaders and the administration taking the position that the International Criminal Court lacks jurisdiction with respect to Israeli personnel.