[Nearly three years ago, Congress gave Israel a pass to stockpile
precision-guided bombs "without regard to annual limits." An inside
source confirms that even more have been transferred since October 7.]
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HOW ISRAEL GOT AN ENLESS SUPPLY OF U.S.-MADE SMART BOMBS  
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Ari Tolany, Lillian Mauldin, Janet Abou-Elias and Women for Weapons
Trade Transparency
December 4, 2023
In these Times
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_ Nearly three years ago, Congress gave Israel a pass to stockpile
precision-guided bombs "without regard to annual limits." An inside
source confirms that even more have been transferred since October 7.
_

, Abdel Ra'ouf Arnaout

 

The United States has had the authority to quietly transfer
precision-guided munitions, or PGMs, to Israel for the past three
years through a little-noticed provision passed by Congress in
January 2021. 

Section 1275 of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act
[[link removed]] (NDAA)
allows a limitless transfer of PGMs from U.S. reserve stocks to
Israel’s stockpile without normal 
[[link removed].]congressional
notifications, as long as U.S ​“combat readiness”
isn’t compromised.

PGMs — which include any guided missile designed to hit an
extremely precise target — have been an Israeli weapon of
choice
[[link removed]] in
the massive and deadly bombardment that has destroyed
[[link removed]] an
estimated 98,000 buildings in Gaza and reportedly
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more than 15,000 Palestinians. Satellite-guided bombs (a type of
PGM) of between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds made up about 90% of the
weapons the Israeli military used
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the first two weeks after October 7.

While PGM’s advanced targeting is billed as a way to avoid
[[link removed]] civilian
harm, they have been linked to many strikes
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Israel and other U.S. allies
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densely populated areas, including homes in central Gaza
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the Jabalia refugee camp.
[[link removed]] A spokesperson
for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) admitted
[[link removed].] to
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that they struck the camp knowing the area was
crowded with civilians.

President Joe Biden says that the United States has
been ​“surging additional military assistance” to Israel since
October 7. But government reporting
[[link removed]] on
the details of that assistance has been sporadic and opaque.

Now, a source in the State Department confirms to _In These
Times_ and Women for Weapons Trade Transparency that
Section 1275 has been invoked since October 7 to rush more PGMs
to Israel.

[People carry a stretcher through a street filled with rubble.]

Analysts believe Israel used Boeing-manufactured JDAMs, a type of
precision-guided missile, in strikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in
Gaza that left an estimated 195 dead.PHOTO BY SAMI ABU TABAK/ANADOLU
VIA GETTY IMAGES

An endless stockpile

Israel lobbied the United States for greater access to PGMs in the
wake of its 2014 assault on Gaza that left some 2,200 Palestinians
dead. The Israeli government argued that it needed more smart bombs to
use against Hamas and Hezbollah in case of emergency.
Section 1275 of the 2021 NDAA was seemingly meant to fulfill that
request, enabling the president to bypass normal weapons spending caps
on transfers of PGMs already stored in U.S. reserves.

“Although it is almost impossible for independent experts to trace
due to a lack of basic transparency, there is little doubt that
Israel and the U.S. took advantage of the provision,” says William
Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for
Responsible Statecraft. ​“The whole purpose of doing it in this
fashion is to hide the extent of these deadly transfers — and
the mechanisms used to carry them out — from public view.”

The _Jerusalem Post _reported in 2021 that the United States
quickly replenished the hundreds of PGMs dropped on the Gaza Strip in
May 2021 and that Israel planned to purchase ​“far more”
by 2024.

Hartung says that the common-sense logic in Washington D.C. is that
U.S. weapons transfers should ​“increase stability”
or ​“bolster the ability of allies to defend themselves.” 

“While this may be true in some cases, in many others — such
as U.S. arms supplies to Saudi Arabia for use in the war in Yemen or
for Israel’s war on Gaza — pouring in arms to regions of
tension enables human rights abuses, entrenches authoritarian regimes
and fuels deadly conflict,” he says.

_A _New York Times_ investigation found that Israel used
JDAMs — a type of PGM — in May 2021 attacks on a Gaza
apartment complex that killed civilian families._

Civilian killings, precisely targeted 

The Biden administration argues that guided weapons are a valuable
tool to reduce civilian casualties by enabling more precise targeting.
But U.S. policy decisions have tacitly admitted that sometimes the
opposite is true. In 2016, President Barack Obama’s
administration suspended
[[link removed]] PGM
sales to Saudi Arabia due to ​“systemic, endemic” concerns that
the advanced weaponry was deployed against civilian targets.

Supplying these attack munitions to Israel, a government with
a history [[link removed]] of
striking civilian infrastructure with PGMs — and which
has publicly stated
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emphasis of its bombing of Gaza is ​“damage and not
accuracy” — has been particularly controversial.

When the State Department notified
[[link removed]] Congress
on October 31 that it planned to transfer $320 million in kits to
convert unguided bombs into precision munitions, Rep. Ilhan Omar
(D-Minn.) introduced a resolution
[[link removed]] of
disapproval in a move applauded by peace and arms control civil
society groups, including Women for Weapons Trade Transparency.

There is ample evidence that PGMs have been used in the current
Israeli campaign in strikes
[[link removed]] against
civilian infrastructure. Marc Garlasco, a military advisor at the
Dutch peace organization PAX, says that ​“photos of weapon
remnants, craters, and reporting out of Israel and Gaza indicate
strikes carried out in Gaza City, including strikes at multiple
refugee camps, were conducted with GBU-31’s and other [PGMs].”
Analysts believe
[[link removed]] Israel
used a Boeing
[[link removed]]-manufactured
guided bomb unit, a kind of PGM, during its
Oct. 31-Nov. 2 airstrikes 
[[link removed]]on
Jabalia Refugee Camp, which reportedly killed 195 people
[[link removed]].

An Amnesty International investigation
[[link removed]] released
December 5 traced the killing of 43 civilians in
Gaza — including 19 children — back to Boeing-made JDAMs
(a type of PGM) supplied by the United States. After ordering
residents of Northern Gaza to relocate south, the Israeli military
struck family homes in Deir al-Balah, below the evacuation line,
without warning. The strikes killed 24 people on
October 10 and 19 people on October 22. (_This story has been
updated to include the Amnesty report.)_

Less and less transparency

In its request for $14.5 billion in military aid to Israel, the Biden
administration is following the precedent set by Section 1275 and
other NDAA amendments by further undercutting transparency in all
stockpile transfers, not just for PGMs. The President’s requested
supplemental bill would waive the annual cap
[[link removed]] on
transfers to the U.S. stockpile within Israel. With no limit on those
transfers and Israel’s ability
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draw from that stockpile at will, the U.S. would supply Israel with
a virtually endless supply of weaponry without congressional
authorization or oversight. 

The Senate is currently working
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pass the supplemental, with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer
(D-N.Y.) saying the bill could be up for a vote as early
[[link removed]] as
this week.

The White House’s supplemental request also contained another
transparency waiver, first reported by Women for Weapons Trade
Transparency and _In These Times_ last month, which would let the
White House unilaterally blanket-approve
[[link removed]] future
sales of military equipment and weapons to Israel without
notifying Congress.

In response, some Democrats want stronger assurances
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U.S. weapons will be used consistently with U.S. law and called for
greater transparency in transfers.

Several high-ranking Democrats have already come out against giving
Biden increased powers to transfer weapons to Israel without
scrutiny. ​“We should not make exceptions to this
practice — it’s our duty to review these funds and ensure
their use is in the best interests of the American people and in
alignment with U.S. policy,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.),
a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement to
the _Washington Post_.

Sen. Schumer’s office did not respond by deadline to an inquiry
about whether the two transparency waivers will be included in
the bill.

* US Arms Sales
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* Israel/Gaza
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