But so far the movement lacks clear support from two countries that supply almost all of Israel’s imported weapons: the United States and Germany. Both voted this week against the non-binding UN Human Rights Council resolution.
The United States and Germany supply about 99 percent of all weapons imported into Israel, according to an analysis published in March by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
According to SIPRI estimates, Israel imported 69% of its weapons from the United States and 30% from Germany between 2019 and 2023. This partly reflects where the weapons manufacturers are located, but also the politics of the government. U.S. aid to Israel largely takes the form of grants to purchase U.S.-made military equipment. The German government, meanwhile, has made approving German-made arms exports to Israel a priority.
President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz accelerated arms shipments to Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks on the country that left 1,200 people dead.
“The United States is the key to making arms restrictions have a meaningful impact on Israeli policy,” said Seth Binder, an expert at the Middle East Democracy Center.
There are signs that leverage can work. In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, Biden told the Israeli leader that “specific, concrete and measurable measures are needed to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering and worker safety.” humanitarian aid,” the White House said. said in a statement.
Only hours later, Israel’s war cabinet announced new measures to allow more aid into Gaza, including the opening of the Erez border crossing, a move humanitarian groups have been demanding for months. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said he hoped it was a sign that the Biden administration had indicated it was seriously considering scaling back its support for Israel.
“The goal is not to stop all arms transfers. The goal is to use the leverage of arms transfers to enforce our legitimate demands,” Van Hollen said in an interview.
“We went through a period where the Netanyahu government ignored requests from the United States and we sent 2,000-pound bombs” to Israel, he added. “I hope we are now at a point where we are no longer giving blank checks.”
Others say the United States should move beyond threats. In a letter released Thursday, the Elders, a group of 12 global human rights leaders chaired by former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, said the United States should be spearheading an arms embargo.
“As Israel’s closest ally and its largest arms supplier, the United States of America must lead the way,” the group’s statement said.
More than 160 humanitarian organizations and rights groups have signed a call for an arms embargo, first launched on January 24. New signatories joined after Israeli airstrikes killed seven members of a World Central Kitchen aid convoy on Monday, highlighting the dangers of humanitarian operations in the country. Gaza.
The national and regional governments of Belgium, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain have suspended arms sales to Israel, citing concerns over international humanitarian law. Japanese company Itochu announced in February that it would end its partnership with a major Israeli defense supplier, in response to a ruling by the International Court of Justice.
In Denmark, human rights groups last month sued the government to block the export of weapons and other military equipment to Israel, while French lawmakers wrote to President Emmanuel Macron. Friday to demand a similar movement.
One of the strongest reactions came from Britain, a key ally of Israel and the United States. There, the deaths of three British citizens during the World Central Kitchen workers’ strike sparked public outrage. More than 800 legal experts wrote to the government this week saying the country should suspend arms exports to Israel to avoid “complicity in serious violations of international law.”
“Enough”, we read in Thursday’s newspaper front page of the Independentwho said it was time to “do whatever it takes” to stop the war.
The resolution adopted Friday by the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council was passed by a vote of 28 to 6, with 13 abstentions. However, as a non-binding resolution, it is unlikely to have any practical impact on arms sales to Israel.
The United Nations can impose mandatory arms embargoes on countries through a Security Council vote, as it did for South Africa during the apartheid era. However, the United States has veto power. “As a result, there is almost no chance that an arms embargo will be imposed on Israel by the United Nations,” said Jennifer L. Erickson, an arms control specialist at Boston College.
Erickson added that the European Union could implement a bloc-wide arms embargo, as it has done in other cases. “But this would in practice require the consensus of all EU member states,” Erickson said – meaning Germany would have to agree.
The United States has been by far the largest supporter of the Israeli military, providing billions of dollars in aid each year. Most of that falls under the Foreign Military Financing Program, which provides grants for the purchase of U.S. military goods and services.
German arms exports to Israel increased tenfold last year compared to 2022, reaching $354 million. Of that amount, about $22 million was for offensive weapons, including 3,000 man-portable anti-tank weapons and 500,000 rounds for machine guns, submachine guns or other fully automatic or semi-automatic firearms. Most exports were approved after October 7.
The German government’s unwavering support is based on the idea that Israel’s security and right to exist are part of Germany’s historical responsibility and “reason of state”, a formulation used for the first time by Angela Merkel in 2008.
“I think with that 2008 statement, Germany really put itself in a straitjacket and sort of willingly gave up its options,” said Daniel Marwecki, author of “Germany and Israel: Whitewashing and Statebuilding”.
Unlike the United States, Germany is a party to the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, which could ban the sale of certain weapons to Israel if there was a risk they could be used to violate international humanitarian law. National law could provide for an additional constraint. German human rights lawyers filed an urgent appeal to the court on Friday, demanding that the government stop authorizing the use of weapons of war for Israel, in accordance with the arms control law war of the country.
Amanda Klasing, advocacy director at Amnesty International USA, said her organization was trying to argue to the U.S. government that its arms shipments to Israel violated international obligations. “There is sufficient evidence to leverage existing laws and policies to suspend arms transfers,” she said. “Ultimately, continuing to send weapons is a political choice. »
The United States has provided Israel with numerous shipments of heavy weapons used in Gaza since October 7, including heavy bombs and joint direct attack munitions systems that can be installed to transform them into guided weapons.
“The United States used a contingency provision to send 155mm artillery munitions to Israel in December,” said Binder, of the Middle East Democracy Center. “If Israel had not received a resupply of shells, it would not have been able to conduct its operations in the same way. »
The State Department last month authorized the transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines. A judge in the Netherlands recently ruled that there was “a clear risk that serious violations of the humanitarian laws of war” would be committed by the F-35s used by Israel and blocked the export of spare parts for the planes. .
White House national security adviser John Kirby told reporters this week that the State Department continues to review Israeli actions in Gaza, but that officials “have not yet found any incident which would have revealed a violation of international humanitarian law.”
Both the State Department and the Defense Department have mechanisms to assess whether U.S. weapons are being used to break the law, the former of which was put in place by the Biden administration last year.
In February, Biden issued a national security memorandum that expanded those rules, adding an annual report to Congress on whether recipients of U.S. weapons met the standards. Nonprofits that monitor the use of U.S. weapons in Israel have said the process is cumbersome and unclear.
Ellen Francis contributed to this report.
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