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Times of Israel report on January 25 noted that more than 250 U.S. cargo planes and 20 ships have delivered more than 10,000 tons of munitions and military equipment to Israel since its onslaught on Gaza began in October.

The same article stated that Israeli Defense Ministry Director General Eyal Zamir visited Washington in late January to finalize the purchase of 25 F-35 stealth fighter jets, 25 F-15 fighter jets and 12 Apache helicopters from the U.S.

In late December, The Times of Israel reported that the Israeli Defense Ministry had made almost $2.8 billion in additional purchases from the U.S. since the war started—in addition to the $3.8 billion in military aid that the U.S. provides to Israel annually.^[1]

On January 26, a 17-judge panel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague issued a ruling that South Africa had solid foundation to bring its case of genocide before the world’s highest court. 

As of this writing, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed more than 26,000 civilians in Gaza and injured 65,000 more while reducing much of Gaza to rubble following the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel.

The ICJ case may very well implicate the U.S., which has provided most of the weapons used to kill Palestinian civilians in violation of the laws of war.

Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud wrote that “the fingerprints of U.S. weapons are on the body of every Palestinian killed in Gaza, from the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, to UN schools, to every house and every street.”

According to Baroud,

“never before in the history of the U.S.’s relationship with the Middle East has Washington been so directly involved in an Israeli war. The closest was the 1973 war, and even then, the U.S. involvement arrived a week later, and was hardly as direct.”^[2]

In December, Amnesty International carried out an investigation, which determined that Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) manufactured by Boeing at a factory in St. Louis, Missouri, were used by the Israeli military in two unlawful air strikes on homes full of civilians in the Gaza Strip on October 10 and 13, with the fragments from the bombs found in the rubble.

A Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kit fixed to a bomb on display at the Navy League’s 2003 Sea-Air-Space Exposition. [Source: wsws.org]

The strikes on the al-Najjar family home in Deir al-Balah and Abu Mu’eileq family home in the same city killed a total of 43 civilians, including 19 children, and 14 women. In both cases, survivors told Amnesty International there had been no warning of an imminent strike.

A fragment of the JDAM that struck the Abu Mu’eileq family home. [Source: amnesty.org]

Members of the al-Najjar family who were killed in the strike. [Source: amnesty.org]

Members of the Abu Mu’eileq family who were killed in the strike. [Source: amnesty.org]

Amnesty has also raised alarm at the use of white phosphorus bombs in Gaza in violation of international law that it believed “may have been exported” from the U.S. In the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead, Israel used white phosphorus bombs that had been produced in Louisiana and Arkansas.

A target of anti-war activism during the Vietnam era, white phosphorus bombs are designed to burn people’s flesh to the bone.

Another weapons used widely by Israel are BLU-109 2,000 pound bunker buster bombs made in the U.S., which according to AP News have killed thousands of people after being dropped in densely populated neighborhoods on the Gaza strip.

According to a report on the World Socialist Website (WSWS), Israeli air strikes in Gaza have been carried out from a fleet of American made warplanes consisting of:

• 40 F-35 advanced Lockheed Martin stealth warplanes
• 196 F-16 multi-purpose planes made by General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin
• 83 F-15 fighters designed and produced by McDonnell Douglas (which is now part of Boeing)

These warplanes are equipped with bombs, missiles and guidance kits largely manufactured in the United States.

The bombs include MK-80 bombs made by General Dynamics in Garland, Texas, and retrofitted in McAlester, Oklahoma, at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant, which produces a wide variety of bombs, including the infamous Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bombs dropped on Afghanistan, whose yield is comparable to a tactical nuclear weapon.^[3] 

A worker at the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, Inc., plant in Garland, Texas, works on the MK-80 series of bombs. [Source: wsws.org]

McAlester Army Ammunition Plant where they are proud of their deadly creation. [Source: armymilitary.net]

According to the WSWS, the MK-80 is a “primary bomb being used by the IDF as it destroys Gaza.” The IDF has also likely been using GBU-12 (Paveway) laser-guided bombs manufactured by Lockheed at its plant in Archbald, Pennsylvania, that are dropped from Lockheed F-35 fighter jets manufactured at a Lockheed plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

Lockheed’s Archbald plant, where smart bombs used by the IDF to kill Gazan civilians are manufactured. [Source: wsws.org]

Government contracts show that, at its main production headquarters in Tucson, Arizona, Raytheon makes its own variant of the Paveway laser-guided bomb kit and a variety of other missiles for the IDF, including the TOW, the AGM-65 Maverick, the Sidewinder, and the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) explains that Raytheon “provides weapon systems, components, and maintenance services to the Israeli Air Force’s fleet of F-15, F-16, and F-35 fighter jets. For example, the company and its subsidiary Pratt & Whitney have provided F100 engines—the ‘engine of choice’ for F-15 and F-16 aircraft—and APG-82(V)1 radars.”

Raytheon also makes a variety of smaller electronic components as well for the IDF, regularly working with Elbit Systems, a leading Israeli weapons manufacturer.

Of the protests in the U.S. over the Israel-Gaza War, a number have targeted the weapons pipeline coming out of the United States. For example, as the WSWS reports:

• On Thursday, November 2, 60 protesters blocked the entrance to Raytheon in Tucson, demanding the company end its extensive sales to the IDF.
• On Friday, November 3, hundreds of protesters and several rank-and-file members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) stalled the military vessel Cape Orlando in Oakland, California, as it headed to Israel with military supplies.
• On Monday, November 6, hundreds more protesters tried to block Cape Orlando in Tacoma, Washington. At least three dock workers refused to handle the cargo.
• On the same day, 75 young protesters blocked entrances to the Boeing plant outside of St. Louis, Missouri, the one which builds JDAMS, delaying the start of the shift by four hours, according to St. Louis Public Radio.
• Several protests have occurred at Elbit Systems, one of the largest Israeli defense companies. This includes a protest by more than 200 people at Elbit’s U.S. headquarters in Boston.

The Merchants of Death war crimes tribunal, headed by former Lancaster prosecutor Brad Wolf, has sought to hold leading weapons contractors accountable for their war profiteering.

Source: merchantsofdeath.org

Besides enriching the coffers of leading arms manufacturers, the Biden administration’s support for Israel is contingent on Israel’s function as what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has called a virtual aircraft carrier for the U.S. in the oil-rich Middle East.

Israel performs vital services for the U.S. by attacking nationalistic regimes hostile to U.S. interests like, that led by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War and Bashar al-Assad of Syria today, and has allowed the U.S. to establish a secret military base in the Negev Desert that can be used as a launching pad for wider U.S. military operations in the Middle East.

It is no surprise then that the Biden administration is unfazed by the recent ICJ court ruling, and will continue to arm Israel as it commits genocide against the Palestinian people who count for little in the U.S.’s larger geopolitical designs.

Iranian Hawks Beat Drums of War as Biden Plans Military Strike

The war drums are starting to beat louder and louder for Iran following a drone attack on the Syria-Jordan border in the Al-Tanf area that killed three U.S. servicemen and wounded 34.

The Biden administration blamed the attack on Iran without offering any proof, with Iran denying any involvement.

Biden said on January 30 that “I do hold them [Iran] responsible in that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.”

Biden also said that the U.S. response to the drone attack would be carried out “over the course of several days,” striking “multiple targets,” a U.S. official told ABC News. “These are going to be very deliberate targets—deliberate strikes on facilities that enabled these attacks,” on U.S. forces, the official said.

Though Biden claimed he does not want a wider Middle East war, U.S. action is threatening exactly that—something neoconservatives have long wanted.

In a characteristic segment on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News on January 26, Florida Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL) claimed that Iran had carried out 165 attacks on U.S. troops since October 7 plus an additional 78 since Biden took office, leaving out that these troops were illegally occupying Middle-Eastern countries.

Waltz said in response to the attacks that the U.S. should develop a multi-pronged strategy in which it “hit Iranian operatives, dried up Iranian cash revenues, and supported Iranian efforts to overthrow their government, like in the Green revolution and Masha Ahmini protests,” which Obama and Biden had done little in his view to effectively support.

Sean Hannity chimed in with the false claim that Iran was now “only months away from obtaining nuclear weapons capability” and said that Americans should be “deadly afraid of the marriage of radical ideology and nuclear weapons.”

The third guest, Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth said that the “bad guys” [Iran] should know that if they attack Americans, they will be killed.”

Hegseth said that this wasn’t happening under the Biden administration, which was constraining the operations of U.S. troops holding the line against ISIS. The Biden administration was bombing warehouses to make it look like it was doing something and could have used some of the troops guarding the Jordan-Syrian border on the U.S.-Mexican border.

In Hegspeth’s view, Biden and his supporters naively believed that “a ceasefire in Gaza would cause Iran and its proxies–the Houthis, Hizbollah, Hamas and the anti-American militias that had targeted U.S. troops to stand back, which was a pipe dream.”

The choice was clear in the 2024 election between Biden and Trump, who according to Waltz, had “defeated ISIS, killed Baghdadi, made Iran broke and without nuclear weapons, and signed the Abraham Accords [drawing Israel closer to various Gulf Arab countries in an anti-Iran alliance].”

The above Republican talking points sadly resonate among certain segments of the U.S. electorate who have been conditioned to hate Iran and Muslims more broadly and to support imperialistic foreign policies. They embody the lie that Trump is an antiwar candidate and that U.S. foreign policy would be less aggressive or recklessly militaristic under his leadership than under Biden’s.

On Tuesday January 30, Hannity had on his show Iran-Contra felon and CIA agent Oliver North who reminisced about how he had a cyanide poison pill with him on one of his missions to Iran in the 1980s in case he had to commit suicide. (North was in Iran to procure illegal weapons sales in order to finance Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries mobilized by the CIA to overthrow the socialist Sandinistas).

North echoed Hannity in calling Biden the “appeaser-in-chief” for ignoring the alleged 160+ attacks on U.S. troops since Biden took office, leaving out like Waltz that those troops were illegally occupying Muslim countries. (Iran also was never proven to have been directly responsible for any of the attacks).

Calling the Iranian regime a suicidal one that embraced a death cult, North advanced a five point program for Iran that he said would deter Iranian aggression and prevent World War III.

The plan called for a) accelerating harsh sanctions on Iran, b) warning the Ayatollah that the U.S. would cut off Iran’s oil supplies if U.S. ships were struck again; c) indictment of the leaders of Iranian proxies that attacked U.S. troops; d) an end to any secret meetings supposedly being held in an attempt to revitalize the Iran nuclear agreement that Trump pulled out of, and e) acceleration of the sale of liquified natural gas to U.S. allies to shore up their strength.

Hannity responded to North by proposing bombing Iran’s oil refineries, which North seemed to agree with, as did two other guests on Hannity’s show, historian Victor Davis Hanson, and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.

Twenty years ago, Hannity was leading the way in championing the U.S. invasion of Iraq, bringing on similar kinds of guests making similar kinds of arguments.

One would think that the outcome of that war would have had a humbling effect and would limit calls for yet more military intervention in the Middle East.

One should remember, however, that Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch has deep CIA ties and that Fox is a mouthpiece for a Republican Party that is financed by big oil companies who made a killing in Iran prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution when the Shah gave them what they wanted.

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019), The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018), and Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden (Clarity Press, 2023). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

1. After the war broke out in mid-October, President Biden requested a $14 billion aid package to Israel and Biden also removed restrictions on Israel’s ability to access a weapons stockpile that the Pentagon has kept in Israel since the 1980s. The State Department further invoked emergency provisions that allowed it to send tens of thousands of artillery shells and other munitions to Israel without review of Congress. 

2. Baroud continued: “Every statement made by top U.S. officials, starting with Biden, to Blinken to Sullivan, to all others, indicate that the U.S. is a party in the war, not an outsider, a benefactor, and certainly not a mediator. They even sat in on meetings to discuss Israeli war plans on Gaza. They cannot claim ignorance.” 

3. The bomb was nicknamed the “mother of all bombs.” 

Featured image: U.S.-supplied military equipment arriving in Israel, December 2023. [Source: timesofisrael.com]