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Yes, the Biden Administration Is Slow Walking Arms to Israel
(Tablet) Michael Doran - Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the Biden administration is withholding one single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, out of fear that they might be used in densely populated Gaza, and that "everything else is moving as it normally would move." But on May 15, Politico reported that an order by Israel for JDAM converter kits that turn "dumb" bombs into "smart" bombs "came up for license in December 2023, and the administration has been sitting on it ever since." The JDAMs, Politico reported, are but one of "multiple" sales that the State Department "is reviewing." Some military sales to Israel have proceeded without delay; some have slowed but not stopped; still others have been halted altogether. This policy began last December, months before Israel's Rafah campaign became in issue. Israel's Defense Ministry Director General, Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, traveled quietly to Washington in January to shorten the time it takes to produce and supply weapons for the IDF and to increase the scope of aid. According to Walla, the Biden team said "they would study the issue, but that no answer would be given before the [American] elections so as not to allow political considerations to influence the administration's decisions." Zamir made clear to the Biden team that he had come not for weapons to prosecute the war in Gaza, but out of concerns about "the ongoing tensions with Hizbullah along the northern border and with other Iranian proxy forces across the Middle East." Hizbullah represents the most formidable direct military threat that Israel faces. A full-scale conflict with it will burn up an enormous amount of equipment and ammunition in a very short period, and it risks drawing Iran more directly into the war. The Israelis came to Washington to stock up, to be ready for the conflict should it erupt. The writer is Director of the Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.