Washington, March 2 (RHC)-- U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says he had used his emergency authority to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel, amid a tense ceasefire between the regime and Hamas in Gaza, where over 48,000 Palestinians have been killed.
Rubio said on Saturday he made this decision in order to reverse the Biden Administration’s partial arms embargo that “wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel.”
The declaration is “a yet another sign that Israel has no greater ally in the White House than President Trump,” he said. Since taking office on January 20th, the Donald Trump Administration has approved nearly $12 billion in major foreign military sales to Israel.
This decision coincided with Trump’s repeal of a Joe Biden-era National Security Memorandum 20 (NSM-20).
The memorandum required the U.S. government to produce reports for Congress on the use of US arms by other countries, including the Israeli regime. After returning to office, Trump signed an executive order that called for a review of all national security memoranda issued under Biden.
Also on Friday, the Pentagon said that the State Department had approved the potential sale of nearly $3 billion worth of bombs, demolition kits, and other weaponry to Israel.
The administration notified Congress of those prospective weapons sales on an emergency basis, sidestepping a long-standing practice of giving the chairs and ranking members of the House Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees the opportunity to review the sale and ask for more information before making a formal notification to Congress.
This marks the second time in recent weeks that the Trump administration has invoked emergency authority to expedite weapons sales to Israel.
The Biden administration has previously used emergency authority for the same purpose, sidestepping traditional review processes. The decision to expedite weapons sales to Israel raises concerns about the use of these arms against the civilian population of Gaza.
For 15 months prior to the January 15 ceasefire agreement with Hamas, the Israeli military employed U.S.-supplied weaponry in relentless attacks on Gaza, causing significant civilian casualties and widespread destruction.
