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How the U.S. Labored Time beyond regulation to Ship Weapons to Israel — ProPublica

Reporting Highlights

  • Extra Bombs: Ambassador Jack Lew urged Washington to provide hundreds extra bombs to the Israelis as a result of they’ve a “decades-long confirmed monitor report” of avoiding killing civilians.
  • A Thank-You: After State Division officers spent months working by way of weekends and after hours on arms gross sales, the Israelis despatched circumstances of wine to them simply earlier than Christmas.
  • A Lobbying Push: Protection contractors and lobbyists have additionally helped push alongside priceless gross sales by leaning on State Division officers and lawmakers each time there’s a holdup.

These highlights had been written by the reporters and editors who labored on this story.

In late January, because the dying toll in Gaza climbed to 25,000 and droves of Palestinians fled their razed cities seeking security, Israel’s army requested for 3,000 extra bombs from the American authorities. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, together with different prime diplomats within the Jerusalem embassy, despatched a cable to Washington urging State Division leaders to approve the sale, saying there was no potential the Israel Protection Forces would misuse the weapons.

The cable didn’t point out the Biden administration’s public considerations over the rising civilian casualties, nor did it handle well-documented experiences that Israel had dropped 2,000-pound bombs on crowded areas of Gaza weeks earlier, collapsing residence buildings and killing lots of of Palestinians, lots of whom had been youngsters. Lew was conscious of the problems. Officers say his personal employees had repeatedly highlighted assaults the place giant numbers of civilians died. Properties of the embassy’s personal Palestinian workers had been focused by Israeli airstrikes.

Nonetheless, Lew and his senior management argued that Israel may very well be trusted with this new cargo of bombs, referred to as GBU-39s, that are smaller and extra exact. Israel’s air power, they asserted, had a “decades-long confirmed monitor report” of avoiding killing civilians when utilizing the American-made bomb and had “demonstrated a capability and willingness to make use of it in [a] method that minimizes collateral harm.”

Whereas that request was pending, the Israelis proved these assertions unsuitable. Within the months that adopted, the Israeli army repeatedly dropped GBU-39s it already possessed on shelters and refugee camps that it stated had been being occupied by Hamas troopers, killing scores of Palestinians. Then, in early August, the IDF bombed a faculty and mosque the place civilians had been sheltering. At the least 93 died. Kids’s our bodies had been so mutilated their dad and mom had bother figuring out them.

Weapons analysts recognized shrapnel from GBU-39 bombs among the many rubble.

Within the months earlier than and since, an array of State Division officers urged that Israel be utterly or partially minimize off from weapons gross sales beneath legal guidelines that prohibit arming international locations with a sample or clear threat of violations. Prime State Division political appointees repeatedly rejected these appeals. Authorities specialists have for years unsuccessfully tried to withhold or place circumstances on arms gross sales to Israel due to credible allegations that the nation had violated Palestinians’ human rights utilizing American-made weapons.

On Jan. 31, the day after the embassy delivered its evaluation, Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted an agency-wide city corridor at an auditorium on the State Division headquarters the place he fielded pointed questions from his subordinates about Gaza. He stated the struggling of civilians was “completely intestine wrenching and heartbreaking,” in response to a transcript of the assembly.

“However it’s a query of creating judgments,” Blinken stated of his company’s efforts to attenuate hurt. “We began with the premise on October 7 that Israel had the proper to defend itself, and greater than the proper to defend itself, the proper to strive to make sure that October 7 would by no means occur once more.”

The embassy’s endorsement and Blinken’s statements replicate what many on the State Division have understood to be their mission for practically a yr. As one former official who served on the embassy put it, the unwritten coverage was to “defend Israel from scrutiny” and facilitate the arms circulation irrespective of what number of human rights abuses are reported. “We will’t admit that’s an issue,” this former official stated.

The embassy has even traditionally resisted accepting funds from the State Division’s Center East bureau earmarked for investigating human rights points all through Israel as a result of embassy leaders didn’t need to insinuate that Israel may need such issues, in response to Mike Casey, a former U.S. diplomat in Jerusalem. “In most locations our aim is to handle human rights violations,” Casey added. “We don’t have that in Jerusalem.”

Final week, ProPublica detailed how the federal government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian help — the U.S. Company for Worldwide Improvement and the State Division’s refugees bureau — concluded within the spring that Israel had intentionally blocked deliveries of meals and drugs into Gaza and that weapons gross sales must be halted. However Blinken rejected these findings as nicely and, weeks later, advised Congress that the State Division had concluded that Israel was not blocking help.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken


Credit score:
Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AFP

The episodes uncovered by ProPublica, which haven’t been beforehand detailed, provide an inside take a look at how and why the best rating policymakers within the U.S. authorities have continued to approve gross sales of American weapons to Israel within the face of a mounting civilian dying toll and proof of virtually day by day human rights abuses. This text attracts from a trove of inside cables, e-mail threads, memos, assembly minutes and different State Division data, in addition to interviews with present and former officers all through the company, most of whom spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk publicly.

The data and interviews additionally present that the strain to maintain the arms pipeline shifting additionally comes from the U.S. army contractors who make the weapons. Lobbyists for these firms have routinely pressed lawmakers and State Division officers behind the scenes to approve shipments each to Israel and different controversial allies within the area, together with Saudi Arabia. When one firm govt pushed his former subordinate on the division for a priceless sale, the federal government official reminded him that strategizing over the deal would possibly violate federal lobbying legal guidelines, emails present.

The Biden administration’s repeated willingness to provide the IDF a go has solely emboldened the Israelis, specialists advised ProPublica. At present, as Israel and Iran commerce blows, the chance of a regional struggle is as nice because it has been in a long time and the price of that American failure has change into extra obvious, critics cost.

“The reaffirmation of impunity has come swiftly and unequivocally,” stated Daniel Levy, who served within the Israeli army earlier than holding varied outstanding positions as a authorities official and adviser all through the ’90s. He later turned one of many founders of the advocacy group J Road and president of the U.S./Center East Challenge.

Levy stated there may be nearly no menace of accountability for Israel’s conduct in Gaza, solely “a certainty of carte blanche.” Or, as one other State Division official stated, “If there’s by no means any penalties for doing it, then why cease doing it?”

The struggle in Gaza has waged for practically a yr with out indicators of abating. There are not less than 41,000 Palestinians lifeless, by native estimates. Israel says its actions have been authorized and legit, in contrast to these of Hamas, which killed greater than 1,100 Israelis, principally civilians, on Oct. 7 and continues to carry dozens of hostages.

The U.S. has been a stalwart ally of Israel for many years, with presidents of each events praising the nation as a beacon of democracy in a harmful area crammed with threats to American pursuits.

In response to detailed questions from ProPublica, a State Division spokesperson despatched an announcement saying that arms transfers to any nation, together with Israel, “are achieved so in a deliberative method with applicable enter” from different businesses, State Division bureaus and embassies. “We anticipate any nation that may be a recipient of U.S. safety articles,” he added, “use them in full compliance with worldwide humanitarian regulation, and we’ve a number of ongoing processes to look at that compliance.”

The spokesperson additionally stated Lew has been on the forefront of making certain “that each potential measure is taken to attenuate impacts on civilians” whereas engaged on a cease-fire deal to safe “the discharge of hostages, alleviate the struggling of Palestinians in Gaza, and produce an finish to the battle.”

Israeli army leaders broadly defend their aerial marketing campaign in Gaza as a “army necessity” to eradicate terrorists hiding amongst civilians. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has additionally publicly pressured the Biden administration to hasten arms transfers. “Give us the instruments and we’ll end the job so much sooner,” he stated in June.

ProPublica despatched detailed inquiries to representatives of the Israeli authorities as nicely. A spokesperson stated in an announcement: “The article is biased and seeks to painting professional and routine contacts between Israel and the Embassy in Washington with State Division officers as improper. Its aim seems to be casting doubt on the safety cooperation between two pleasant nations and shut allies.”

Weapons gross sales are a pillar of American international coverage within the Center East. Traditionally, the U.S. provides extra money to Israel for weapons than it does to every other nation. Israel spends most of these American tax {dollars} to purchase weapons and tools made by U.S. arms producers.

Whereas Israel has its personal arms trade, the nation depends closely on American jets, bombs and different weapons in Gaza. Since October 2023, the U.S. has shipped greater than 50,000 tons of weaponry, which the Israeli army says has been “essential for sustaining the IDF’s operational capabilities in the course of the ongoing struggle.” The air defenses that defend Israeli cities and cities — referred to as the Iron Dome — additionally rely largely on U.S. assist.

There’s little signal that both celebration is ready to curtail U.S. weapons shipments. Vice President Kamala Harris has referred to as for a cease-fire, lamented the dying toll in Gaza and stated she supported Palestinians’ proper to self-determination in addition to President Joe Biden’s choice to pause a cargo of two,000 bombs in June. She has additionally echoed a chorus from earlier administrations, pledging to “guarantee Israel has the power to defend itself.” Harris additionally stated she had no intention of breaking with Biden’s Israel coverage.

Republican nominee for president Donald Trump, who has described himself because the “finest good friend that Israel has ever had,” reportedly advised donors that he helps Israel’s “struggle on terror” and promised to crush pro-Palestinian protests on faculty campuses. Trump was additionally lately a featured speaker on the Israeli-American Council’s summit, the place he solid himself as essentially the most pro-Israel selection within the coming election. “You’ve got a giant protector in me,” he advised the gang. “You don’t have a protector on the opposite aspect.”

Individuals transport the physique of a member of the family for burial following an Israeli strike on a college sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza Metropolis on Aug. 10 that killed greater than 90 folks. Shrapnel from GBU-39 bombs was recognized among the many rubble.


Credit score:
Omar al-Qattaa/AFP by way of Getty Pictures

America first started promoting important quantities of weapons to Israel within the early Nineteen Seventies. Till then, Israel had relied on an array of home-grown and worldwide purchases, notably from France, whereas the Soviet Union armed Israel’s adversaries. Over the previous half-century, no nation on the earth has acquired extra American army help than Israel.

The U.S. provides the Israeli authorities about $3.8 billion yearly and way more throughout wartime to assist preserve its army edge within the area. Congress and the chief department have imposed authorized guardrails on how Israel and different international locations can use the weapons they purchase with U.S. cash. The State Division should assessment and approve most of these giant international army gross sales and is required to chop off a rustic if there’s a sample or clear threat of breaking worldwide humanitarian regulation, like focusing on civilians or blocking shipments of meals to refugees. The division can be imagined to withhold U.S.-funded tools and weapons from particular person army items credibly accused of committing flagrant human rights violations, like torture.

Initially, a rustic makes a request and the native embassy, which is beneath the State Division’s jurisdiction, writes a cable referred to as a “nation crew evaluation” to evaluate the health of the nation asking for the weapons. That is only the start of a posh course of, nevertheless it’s an important step due to the embassies’ native experience.

Then, the majority of that assessment is carried out by the State Division’s arms transfers part, referred to as the Bureau of Political-Navy Affairs, with enter from different bureaus. For Israel and NATO allies, if the sale is value not less than $100 million for weapons or $25 million for tools, Congress additionally will get last approval. If lawmakers attempt to block a sale, which is uncommon, the president can sidestep with a veto.

For years, Josh Paul, a profession official within the State Division’s arms transfers bureau, reviewed arms gross sales to Israel and different international locations within the Center East. Over time, he turned one of many company’s most well-versed specialists in arms gross sales.

Even earlier than Israel’s retaliation for Oct. 7, he had been involved with Israel’s conduct. On a number of events, he stated, he believed the regulation required the federal government to withhold weapons transfers. In Might 2021, he refused to approve a sale of fighter jets to the Israeli Air Pressure. “At a time the IAF are blowing up civilian residence blocks in Gaza,” Paul wrote in an e-mail, “I can not clear on this case.” The next February, he wouldn’t log off on one other sale after Amnesty Worldwide printed a report accusing Israeli authorities of apartheid.

In each circumstances, Paul later advised ProPublica, his speedy superiors signed off on the gross sales over his objections.

“I’ve no expectation in any way of creating any coverage features on this matter throughout this Administration,” he wrote on the time to a deputy assistant secretary.

Throughout that very same time interval, Paul circulated a memo to among the company’s senior diplomats with suggestions to strengthen the arms gross sales assessment course of, equivalent to together with enter from human rights teams. Paul warned that the Biden administration’s new arms switch coverage — which prohibits weapons gross sales if it’s “extra doubtless than not” the recipient will use them to deliberately assault civilian constructions or commit different violations — can be “watered down” in follow.

“There’s an inarguable important threat of civilian hurt within the sale of precision-guided munitions to Israel and Saudi Arabia,” the December 2021 memo stated. The U.S. authorities has been traditionally unable to carry itself to its personal requirements, he wrote, “within the face of strain from companions, trade, and perceived coverage imperatives rising from inside the authorities itself.”

It doesn’t seem that suggestions within the memo had been applied both. Paul resigned in protest over arms shipments to Israel final October, lower than two weeks after the Hamas assault. It was the Biden administration’s first main public departure because the begin of the struggle. By then, native authorities stated Israeli army operations had killed not less than 3,300 Palestinians in Gaza.

Internally, different specialists started to fret the Israelis had been violating human rights virtually from the onset of the struggle as nicely. Center East officers delivered not less than six dissent memos to senior leaders criticizing the administration’s choice to proceed arming Israel, in response to those that had a task in drafting a few of them. The content material of a number of memos leaked to the media earlier this yr. The company says it welcomes enter from the dissent channel and incorporates it into policymaking choices.

In a single beforehand unreported memo from November, a gaggle of specialists throughout a number of bureaus stated that they had not been consulted earlier than a number of coverage choices about arms transfers instantly after Oct. 7 and that there was no efficient vetting course of in place to guage the repercussions of these gross sales.


That memo, too, appeared to have little impression. Within the early phases of the struggle, State Division employees labored additional time, usually after hours and thru weekends, to course of Israeli requests for extra arms. Some within the company have thought the efforts confirmed an inappropriate quantity of consideration on Israel.

The Israelis, nonetheless, felt completely different. In late December, simply earlier than Christmas, employees within the arms transfers bureau walked into their Washington, D.C., workplace and located one thing uncommon ready for them: circumstances of wine from a vineyard within the Negev Desert, together with customized letters on every bottle.

The presents had been courtesy of the Israeli embassy.

Israeli wine despatched to officers within the State Division’s arms transfers bureau in December


Credit score:
Obtained by ProPublica

The State Division spokesperson stated workers are allowed to simply accept presents from international governments that fall beneath a sure greenback threshold. “To allege that any of their allegiances to the USA must be questioned is insulting,” he added. “The accusation that the Division of State is putting a disproportionate consideration on Israel is inconsistent with the information.”

The spokesperson for the Israeli authorities advised ProPublica, “The embassy routinely sends particular person bottles of wine (not circumstances) to lots of its contacts to cordially mark the tip of the yr holidays.”

One month later, Lew delivered his endorsement of Israel’s request for the three,000 precision GBU-39 bombs, which might be paid for with each U.S. and Israeli funds. Lew is a significant determine in Democratic circles, having served in varied administrations. He was President Barack Obama’s chief of employees after which turned his treasury secretary. He has additionally been a prime govt at Citigroup and a significant non-public fairness agency.

The U.S. protection attaché to Israel, Rear Adm. Frank Schlereth, signed off on the January cable as nicely. Along with its assurances in regards to the IDF, the memo cited the Israeli army’s shut ties with the American army: Israeli air crews attend U.S. coaching faculties to find out about collateral harm and use American-made pc techniques to plan missions and “predict what results their munitions could have on supposed targets,” the officers wrote.

Parts of the January cable U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew despatched to Washington urging the approval of an arms switch


Credit score:
Obtained by ProPublica

Within the early phases of the struggle, Israel used American-made unguided “dumb” bombs, some doubtless weighing as a lot as 2,000 kilos, which many specialists criticized as indiscriminate. However on the time of the embassy’s evaluation, Amnesty Worldwide had documented proof that the Israelis had additionally been dropping the GBU-39s, manufactured by Boeing to have a smaller blast radius, on civilians. Months earlier than Oct. 7, a Might 2023 assault left 10 civilians lifeless. Then, in a strike in early January this yr, 18 civilians, together with 10 youngsters, had been killed. Amnesty Worldwide investigators discovered GBU-39 fragments at each websites. (Boeing declined to remark and referred ProPublica to the federal government.)

On the time, State Division specialists had been additionally cataloging the impact the struggle has had on American credibility all through the area. Hala Rharrit, a profession diplomat primarily based within the Center East, was required to ship day by day experiences analyzing Arab media protection to the company’s senior leaders. Her emails described the collateral harm from airstrikes in Gaza, usually together with graphic photographs of lifeless and wounded Palestinians alongside U.S. bomb fragments within the rubble.

“Arab media continues to share numerous photographs and movies documenting mass killings and starvation, whereas affirming that Israel is committing struggle crimes and genocide and must be held accountable,” she reported in a single early January e-mail alongside {a photograph} of a lifeless toddler. “These photographs and movies of carnage, significantly of youngsters getting repeatedly injured and killed, are traumatizing and angering the Arab world in unprecedented methods.”

Parts of two e-mail snapshots that senior leaders acquired early within the struggle


Credit score:
Obtained, highlighted and pixelated by ProPublica

Rharrit, who later resigned in protest, advised ProPublica these photographs alone ought to have prompted U.S. authorities investigations and factored into arms requests from the Israelis. She stated the State Division has “willfully violated the legal guidelines” by failing to behave on the knowledge she and others had documented. “They’ll’t say they didn’t know,” Rharrit added.

Rharrit stated her superiors ultimately advised her to cease sending the day by day experiences. (The State Division spokesperson stated the company continues to be incorporating views from Arab media in common inside analyses.)

Lew’s January cable makes no point out of the dying toll in Gaza or the incidents of the Israelis dropping GBU-39s on civilians. Eight present and former State Division officers with experience in human rights, the Center East or arms transfers stated the embassy’s evaluation was an insufficient however not a shocking distillation of the administration’s place. “It’s an train in checking the containers,” stated Charles Blaha, a former human rights director on the company.

The State Division declined to touch upon the standing of that request apart from to say the U.S. has supplied giant quantities of GBU-39s to Israel a number of occasions in previous years.

Whereas the U.S. hoped that the smaller bombs would stop pointless deaths, specialists within the legal guidelines of struggle say the dimensions of the bomb would not matter if it kills extra civilians than the army goal justifies. Lt. Col. Rachel E. VanLandingham, a retired officer with the Air Pressure’s Choose Advocate Basic’s Corps, stated the IDF is legally answerable for doing all it might probably to know the chance to civilians forward of any given strike and to keep away from indiscriminately bombing densely populated areas like refugee camps and shelters. “It appears extraordinarily believable that they simply disregarded the chance,” VanLandingham added. “It raises critical considerations and indicators of violating the regulation of struggle.”

Officers on the embassy in Jerusalem and in Washington stated that comparable considerations have been repeatedly delivered to Lew, however his instincts had been to defend Israel. In a separate cable obtained by ProPublica, he advised Blinken and different leaders in Washington that “Israel is a reliable protection articles recipient” and his nation crew assessments forward of previous weapons gross sales have discovered that Israel’s “human rights report justifies the sale.”

Lew went even additional and stated the IDF’s system for selecting targets is so “refined and complete” that, by protection attaché Schlereth’s estimation, it “meets and sometimes exceeds our personal customary,” in response to the cable. Two State Division officers advised ProPublica that Lew and Schlereth have made comparable statements throughout inside conferences. (The Navy didn’t make Schlereth accessible for an interview or reply to a listing of questions.)

Early within the struggle, diplomats on the embassy additionally reported that Israel had dropped bombs on the properties of among the embassy’s personal employees, along with quite a few different incidents involving civilians.

As to why Lew’s cables did not replicate that form of info, one official stated, “My most charitable rationalization is that they could not have had the time or inclination to critically assess the Israelis’ solutions.”

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew


Credit score:
Ahmad Gharabli/AFP by way of Getty Pictures


In Israel’s New York consulate, weapons procurement officers occupy two flooring, processing lots of of gross sales every year. One former Israeli officer who labored there stated he tried to buy as many weapons as potential whereas his American counterparts tried simply as laborious to promote them. “It’s a enterprise,” he stated.

Behind the scenes, if authorities officers take too lengthy to course of a sale, lobbyists for highly effective companies have stepped in to use strain and transfer the deal alongside, ProPublica discovered.

A few of these lobbyists previously held highly effective positions as regulators within the State Division. In recent times, not less than six high-ranking officers within the company’s arms transfers bureau left their posts and joined lobbying corporations and army contractors. Jessica Lewis, the assistant secretary of the bureau, resigned in July and took a job at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. The corporate is the most important lobbying agency in Washington, by lobbying income, and has represented the protection trade and international locations together with Saudi Arabia. (Lewis and the agency didn’t reply to requests for remark.)

Paul Kelly, who was the highest congressional affairs official on the State Division between 2001 and 2005, in the course of the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, stated he usually “obtained leaned on” by the non-public sector to push gross sales to lawmakers for last approval. “They wouldn’t bribe or threaten me, however they’d say … ‘When are you going to log off on it and get it as much as the Hill?’” he advised ProPublica.

Three different State Division officers who presently or lately labored on army help stated little has modified since then and corporations that revenue from the wars in Gaza and Ukraine often name or e-mail. (The company spokesperson advised ProPublica that arms transfers are “not influenced by a specific firm.”) The strain additionally reaches lawmakers’ workplaces as soon as they’re notified of impending gross sales. These measures embrace frequent cellphone calls and common daytime conferences, in response to an official acquainted with the communications.

In some circumstances, the efforts seem to have drifted into questionable authorized territory. In 2017, the Trump administration signed a $350 billion arms take care of Saudi Arabia, an extension of Obama’s former coverage earlier than he suspended some gross sales due to humanitarian considerations. For years, the Saudis and their allies used American-made jets and bombs to assault Houthi militant targets in Yemen, killing hundreds of civilians within the course of.

The next February, the State Division was weighing whether or not to approve a sale of precision-guided missiles produced by Raytheon to Saudi Arabia. A vice chairman on the firm named Tom Kelly — the previous principal deputy assistant secretary of the State Division’s arms transfers bureau — emailed a former subordinate, Josh Paul. Kelly requested to arrange a gathering with Paul and a colleague on the firm to “speak by way of technique” on pushing the sale by way of, in response to an e-mail of the alternate.

Paul wrote again that such a gathering may very well be unlawful. “As you’ll recall out of your time right here, we’re restricted by the Anti-Lobbying Act from coordinating legislative methods with outdoors teams,” he stated. “Nevertheless, I feel the potential bumps within the street are comparatively apparent.” These bumps had been a reference to current media articles about mass civilian casualty incidents in Yemen.

“No worries,” Kelly responded. “I’m certain I’ll see you round.”

Kelly and Raytheon didn’t reply to requests for remark.

The State Division in the end signed off on the sale.

Mariam Elba contributed analysis.

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