The State Department said Israel needs to take more steps to improve the situation among Palestinians. The United States had given the country 30 days to meet aid criteria.
The State Department said on Tuesday that it did not plan to decrease weapons aid to Israel, as a 30-day deadline set by the Biden administration passed without the country substantially improving the humanitarian situation in war-devastated Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had warned in a letter dated Oct. 13 that the United States would reassess its military aid to Israel if it failed to increase the amount of aid allowed to enter Gaza within 30 days.
The letter said that the humanitarian situation for the two million residents of Gaza was “increasingly dire” and that the amount of aid entering Gaza had fallen by 50 percent since April.
By law, the U.S. government cannot give aid to foreign military forces deemed by the State Department to be committing “gross violations of human rights.”
That hasn’t been the case for decades. Israel has a lot of allies in the region (basically the entire anti-Iran coalition). Admitadly, these alliances are largely premised on Israel’s military and intelligence might, which would be diminished without US support; but Israel still has significant in-house capabilities.
As to the actual power dynamics, I agree that the US has a lot of leverage. But that is meaningless if they don’t use it. Moreso now that Israel knows they would only need to wait for the next administration to reverse course if we started using our leverage now.