The Gaza War, Congress and International Humanitarian Law admin, April 16, 2010July 16, 2024 The large-scale killing of civilians during Israel’s three-week assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008-09 received widespread condemnation from human-rights advocates and international legal scholars the world over. In both Europe and North America, public reaction to the grossly disproportionate Israeli response to Hamas rocket attacks was the most negative ever expressed against an Israeli military action. In Israel itself, soldiers who had witnesses some of the atrocities joined Israeli peace activists in exposing war crimes committed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). However, the U.S. Congress, under the leadership of the Democratic Party, overwhelmingly defended the Israeli offensive, even to the point of attacking leading defenders of international humanitarian law. Continue Reading
Swing to the Right in U.S. Policy Toward Israel and Palestine admin, September 9, 2002 Continue Reading
The Strategic Functions of U.S. Aid to Israel admin, October 20, 1996 The United States aid relationship with Israel is unlike any other in the world, or indeed, like any in history. In sheer volume, the amount of aid is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries, totaling $77.726 billion through fiscal year 1996.Foot note 2_1 No country has ever received as much Congressionally-mandated aid as has Israel, including South Vietnam. Indeed, Israel receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual GNP per capita of several Arab states, including Egypt, Mauritania, Sudan, Yemen and Morocco.Foot note 2_2 What is perhaps even more unusual is that Israel, like its benefactor, is an advanced, industrialized, technologically-sophisticated country, as well as a major arms exporter. Continue Reading