Opinion: Kamala Harris must protect Palestinians with an arms embargo

In her recent speech to the Democratic National Convention accepting the party’s nomination for president, Vice President Kamala Harris drew one of her most thunderous applause lines when she called for an end to the violence and suffering Israel is inflicting in Gaza and for the long-denied fulfillment of Palestinian rights to dignity, security, freedom and self-determination.

This enthusiastic reception, evinced by tens of thousands of die-hard Democrats at Chicago’s United Center, was a faithful reflection of where the base of the party stands on Palestinian-Israeli issues.

A May 2024 public opinion poll conducted by Data for Progress and Zeteo found that 83 percent of Democrats support the U.S. brokering a permanent ceasefire. A March 2024 Gallup poll found more Democrats sympathetic toward Palestinians than toward Israelis by a 10-point margin (43 percent to 35 percent) as Israel continues killing Palestinians in Gaza.

While Harris’s rhetorical commitment to Palestinian freedom and self-determination is noteworthy, these will be yet more empty words unless they are accompanied by a commitment to tangible policy change. Most importantly, this means following U.S. law and ending weapons transfers to Israel. No other policy step would have as much of an impact in generating a permanent ceasefire and advancing Palestinian freedom.

For decades, Israel has denied Palestinians their freedom under a brutal system of apartheid and military rule, backed by the munificent support of U.S. taxpayers, who have provided Israel with more than $100 billion in weapons.

As Israel’s violence against Palestinians over the past 10 months has increased, so too has the amount of weaponry the U.S. is providing to Israel. The Biden administration has circumvented congressional oversight to rush to Israel the delivery of more than $6 billion in weapons, and the Pentagon recently notified Congress of $20 billion in potential new sales, which will undoubtedly be financed by U.S. taxpayers.

From fighter jets to missiles, bombs, tank shells and mortars, U.S. weapons to Israel make us complicit in the war crimes and potential crimes against humanity Israel is inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza, as the death toll eclipses 40,000 people , including more than 16,500 children.

In her acceptance speech, Harris committed to “hold sacred” the principle of the rule of law. If elected president, her most immediate test of fidelity to this principle will emerge from her decision on whether to send additional weapons to Israel.

U.S. law is clear: no country can receive U.S. weapons to commit human rights abuses. The Foreign Assistance Act prevents the U.S. from furnishing any support to a country with a “consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” The Arms Export Control Act mandates that U.S. weapons be used “solely for internal security, for legitimate self-defense,” and for a few other scenarios not relevant to Israel’s attacks on Palestinians in Gaza. No sales or deliveries of any weapons are permitted to a country in “substantial violation” of these limitations.

In addition, current White House guidelines, embodied in its Conventional Arms Transfer policy, prohibit weapons deliveries to a country when it is “more likely than not that the arms to be transferred will be used by the recipient to commit, facilitate the recipients’ commission of, or to aggravate risks that the recipient will commit: genocide; crimes against humanity; grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, including attacks intentionally directed against civilian objects or civilians protected as such; or other serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law, including serious acts of gender‑based violence or serious acts of violence against children.”

As attested to by myriad Palestinian and international human rights organizations, as well as United Nations agencies and judicial bodies, Israel is brazenly violating every single clause of the Conventional Arms Transfer policy, which is supposed to prevent U.S. complicity in atrocities.

Not only should Harris commit to ending weapons transfers to Israel because U.S. law and policy mandate she do so if elected president, stopping weapons to Israel is also a smart electoral strategy to adopt. A March 2024 public opinion poll conducted by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that 62 percent of Biden 2020 voters support halting weapons shipments to Israel, whereas only 14 percent oppose.

In addition, an August 2024 public opinion poll of voters in the critical swing states of Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia, conducted by the IMEU Policy Project , found that Democratic and independent voters would be more likely to cast their ballot for Harris if she were to support an arms embargo on Israel. Thirty-nine percent of Georgians would be more likely to vote for Harris in this scenario, whereas only 5 percent of voters would be less likely to vote for her, with similar results obtained in Arizona (35 percent to 5 percent) and in Pennsylvania (34 percent to 7 percent).

Unfortunately, Harris appears wedded to Biden’s failed strategy of providing Israel with weapons. As she put it in an interview with CNN , she would not withhold weapons.

More than 75 years ago, in November 1947, as the U.N. debated partitioning Palestine against the wishes of its majority indigenous inhabitants, the Truman administration imposed an arms embargo on all sides in Palestine for the commonsense reason, in the subsequent words of Secretary of State George Marshall , that to “permit American arms to go to Palestine and neighboring states would facilitate acts of violence and the further shedding of blood and thus render still more difficult the task of maintaining law and order.”

The Truman administration maintained its arms embargo against Israel after its establishment in May 1948, despite fierce lobbying from members of Congress, Zionist organizations in the U.S. and the Israeli government. Israel engaged in massive ethnic cleansing , driving more than 80 percent of Palestinians from their homes in what became Israel and turning them into refugees. But at least U.S. weapons did not contribute to this atrocity.

Today, as Israel continues its horrendous violence against Palestinians, which is in some respects even more deadly than the catastrophe of 1948 , the obverse is true. The U.S. is profoundly complicit in Israel’s mass killing of Palestinians.

Because of her stated commitment to the rule of law, a permanent ceasefire and Palestinian freedom, Harris must now end U.S. complicity by backing a renewed arms embargo against Israel.

Josh Ruebner is policy director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project.

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