On Wednesday, the US Senate will hold a vote on whether to approve the Pentagon’s request to send another $20bn in armaments to Israel, after a year in which the Biden administration has supplied billions of dollars of arms used in Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.
Among the weapons to be approved are 120mm tank rounds, high explosive mortar rounds, F-15IA fighter aircraft, and joint direct attack munitions, known as JDAMs, which are precision systems for otherwise indiscriminate or “dumb” bombs.
Separate resolutions are being brought forward for each weapon type, including its cost to US taxpayers. However, together, the initiative is known as the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (JRDs).
As a result of intensive lobbying from pro-Israel groups like Aipac and the Democratic Majority For Israel, no arms transfer to Israel has been blocked.
The resolutions likely to gain the highest levels of support are expected to involve the tank rounds, which have been responsible for killing hundreds of civilians in northern Gaza in particular, and the JDAMs, which caused the death of well-known figures such as Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah in southern Lebanon, and six-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza City.
Oh I’m all for them doing it. I’m not trying to say not to do it. If nothing else it will probably bring a lot of Arab Americans back to the Democrats. I’m just bitter because if they had told AIPAC where to go and passed it months ago then I’m pretty sure we’d have at least one swing state. And showing any kind of fire, instead of, “Things will remain the same because we don’t see anything wrong with the direction of the country!”, would probably have brought more people to the polls in every swing state. I can’t guarantee it would have turned into a win, but it wouldn’t have been a fucking rout.