Experts note that although Biden’s threat to Israel of a potential arms embargo is ambiguous, it may signal the end of the “blank cheque” policy.
President Joe Biden of the United States has been under increasing pressure for months to cease arming Israel while the US partner fights a war in the Gaza Strip.
Protesters, legislators, and human rights groups from all throughout the US have warned the president that the guns are being used in war crimes and breaches of human rights in Gaza and have called for an end to the deliveries.
The halting of a single shipment of “high payload munitions” to Israel due to apprehensions about the Israeli military’s upcoming offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was revealed this week by senior Biden administration officials.
On Wednesday night, Biden seemed to take things a step further when he told CNN that if Israeli soldiers enter “population centers,” he would not be “supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah.”
However, what did Biden actually say, what does it signify in real life, and what should happen next, according to experts?
What was said by Biden?
In an interview that aired on Wednesday, CNN’s Erin Burnett questioned Biden over his administration’s choice to halt the single weapons shipment to Israel, which included 1,800 bombs, each weighing roughly 900 kg (2,000 lb), and an additional 1,700 bombs, each weighing 226 kg (500 lb).
Has the deployment of those potent, 2,000-pound bombs resulted in the deaths of people in Gaza? Burnett enquired.
In response, Biden said, “Those bombs and other ways they [the Israeli forces] go after population centers have resulted in civilian deaths in Gaza.”
“And I made it clear that I’m not supplying the weapons that have been used historically to deal with Rafah, that deal with the cities, that deal with that problem,” the speaker said. “And they haven’t gone into Rafah yet.”
The US president went on to say that his government would “keep making sure Israel is secure in terms of [its] Iron Dome” missile defense system and in terms of its capacity to “respond to attacks.”
But it’s simply incorrect. He declared, “We’re not going to supply the artillery shells or the weapons.”
Burnett then questioned Biden on if Israeli forces had not already “gone into Rafah” after they captured the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt this week and began lethal attacks on the city.
They haven’t entered the populated areas. According to Biden, “What they did is right on the border.”
“I’ve told the war cabinet and ‘Bibi,’ [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu], that they won’t have our support if they actually enter these population centers.”
However, the town of Rafah and the Rafah border crossing are adjacent, and Palestinians point out that Israel had been attacking Rafah with air strikes throughout the war, killing many civilians, including children, long before it controlled the area.
In practical terms, what does Biden’s warning entail?
The International Crisis Group’s Brian Finucane, a senior consultant in the US program, claimed that Biden was vague regarding the kinds of weaponry that would be included in the category of those that had been “used historically to deal with Rafah.”
Finucane told Al Jazeera that the US president’s comments were also not “a model of clarity as to what the trigger would be for such a termination, given the fact that Israeli troops are already in Rafah.”
The Israeli military “may not have an immediate operational impact based on the stores they may have on hand,” he continued, “even if there were an immediate cut-off of air-delivered munitions or artillery shells.”
Finucane continued, “This is another step… and although it’s a long overdue step, I’m not sure how the Biden administration will follow through on this.
But according to Patrick Bury, a professor of warfare at the University of Bath, Israel would rapidly run out of munitions if it launched a large-scale military attack in Rafah.
Consequently, Bury stated in a video appearance with Al Jazeera that Israel “is going to be a major consideration” for any possible US weapons embargo.
In response to Biden, Netanyahu said in a speech on Thursday that Israel would be able to “stand alone” if necessary.
“I have declared that we will battle with our fingernails if needed,” the prime minister declared during a video speech. “Yet we possess much more than just fingernails; with God’s assistance and that same spirit of strength, we will triumph together.”
What kind of signal does it transmit?
As for Biden’s announcement in actuality, Raed Jarrar, the advocacy director at the Washington, DC-based think tank Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said it is “very limited, very qualified [and] very conditional.”
Jarrar told Al Jazeera that Biden’s logic is also incorrect since it is connected to a dispute between the US and Israeli governments on Israel’s military strategies and want to carry out a full-scale attack on Rafah.
But according to Jarrar, the US president’s comments indicate that Washington’s “blank cheque policy to Israel seems to be coming to an end.”
Additionally, they essentially amount to a “admission that Israel is employing US weaponry to conduct extremely serious crimes, and that acknowledgment should lead to very harsh repercussions that are demanded under
