The US State Department confirmed on Thursday that weapons transfers to Israel have been suspended as the White House has given orders to exact additional reviews on Israel due to the war in Gaza.
State Department deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said that she “strongly disagrees with the notion that some of us didn’t’ know what was going on.”
Harf denied reports from The Wall Street Journal that said the Pentagon went behind the backs of the White House and State Department and transferred weapons to Israel.
She said that “to her knowledge” there had been no unauthorized transfers. Harf explained that Israel will now be subject to an inter-agency review by the Pentagon, State Department and White House, for each new request for weapons.
In the initial report by the Journal, sources said that the Obama administration blocked a delivery of precision guided Hellfire missiles to Israel over anger at the situation in Gaza. A senior Israeli official later corroborated that the shipment was cancelled.
The State Department spokesperson worked hard to downplay the magnitude of implications for Israel’s ability to defend itself from indiscriminate terrorists operating in the Gaza Strip.
“As I have said many times, the US has an unshakable commitment to Israel’s security,” Harf stated, citing US President Barack Obama’s approval for increased funding for the Iron Dome missile defense system.
“There has been no change in policy,” Harf said, but she did add that “additional care” would be given when it comes to Israel. She emphasized that these “additional steps” were not yet on the level of an official “review” of US military aid to Israel.
“It’s not an unusual step. The general principle is that when there is an ongoing crisis or conflict in which we are providing weapons, we would take an additional look at it,” she said.
Meanwhile, in Israel, politicians are fuming. MK Miri Regev said that the US’s decision was even more proof “that we can only rely on ourselves.”
MK Danny Danon said that Israel must be patient with the White House since Obama still has two years left to his term as president.
“We must take into account that in two and a half years’ time, President Obama won’t be sitting in the White House, and we will remain here with the threats and the challenges,” he stated.
Danon’s comments echoed an unnamed Israeli official in the Journal who explained that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is biding his time with Obama, knowing that he won’t be president forever.
MK Ze’ev Elkin, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that when Israel’s security and existence is at stake, it is okay to say “no” to Obama.
Speaking to Army Radio, Elkin said, “The United State is a senior partner of ours and is very important to us, but this partnership cannot come at the expense of the security of Israel’s citizens.”
“So because of the pressure exerted on us by the Americans we should give up on the security of Israel’s citizens and strike a deal which is unequivocally in favor of Hamas?” he asked. “I expect the government to known when to tell the Americans ‘no’.”
