The Big GuyBiden
...46th president of the U.S. You're a lyin' dog-faced pony soldier...
had delayed over concerns they could be used by bully boy Israeli settlers.
The State Department sent a notification to Congress on March 6 for the $24 million sale, saying the end user would be the Israeli National Police, according to the document.
The rifle sale is a small transaction next to the billions of dollars worth of weapons that Washington supplies to Israel. But it drew attention when the Biden administration delayed the sale over concerns that the weapons could end up in the hands of Israeli settlers, some of whom have carried out attacks on Paleostinians in the West Bank.
The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on individuals and entities accused of committing violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which has seen a rise in settler attacks on Paleostinians.
On his first day in office on January 20, Trump issued an executive order rescinding US sanctions on Israeli settlers in a reversal of US policy. Since then, his administration has approved the sale of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Israel.
The March 6 congressional notification said the US government had taken into account "political, military, economic, human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
, and arms control considerations."
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment when asked if the administration sought assurances from Israel on the use of the weapons.
The rifle sale had been put on hold after Democratic politicians objected and sought information on how Israel was going to use them. The congressional committees eventually cleared the sale but the Biden administration kept the hold in place. His administration had repeatedly insisted that the only hold in place on Israeli weapons was one on a shipment of 2,000 lb bombs that it was concerned would be used in densely populated areas in which would harm civilians.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, oversees the Israeli police force. The Times of Israel in October 2023 reported that his office has put "a heavy emphasis on arming civilian security squads" in the aftermath of the October 7 onslaught.