Security keeps watch outside a restaurant as California Assemblywoman Dr. Jasmeet Bains, the first Sikh-American politician to be elected in the California State Legislature, speaks to a luncheon gathering in Artesia, California, U.S., June 8, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Blake/File Photo

Sikh activists in US, Canada face threats a year after Trudeau linked leader's killing to India

By Sarah N. Lynch, Wa Lone and Jorge Garcia August 12, 2024

WASHINGTON/TORONTO, Aug 12 (Reuters) - As a physician specializing in addiction, Dr. Jasmeet Bains, the first Sikh American elected to the California assembly, was used to risky situations.

Even so, Bains said she was shocked when four men came to her office in August last year, shortly after California adopted her resolution declaring the killing of thousands of Sikhs in India in 1984 a genocide. The men, who appeared to be of Indian origin, warned they would "do whatever it takes to go after you," Bains said.

The threat was just the beginning.

Since last summer, Bains said, she has received more than 100 threatening text messages. She spotted someone taking photos of her Bakersfield home from a parked truck, and the lock on her mailbox was broken repeatedly.

Bains reported the incident at her office to the local police, and the surveillance of her home to the state assembly Sergeant-at-Arms. Reuters did not review the text messages.

In late September, after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his administration had credible evidence that the Indian government was involved in the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia, Bains said the Sergeant-at-Arms conducted a security assessment at her home and urged her to take precautions. The FBI contacted her about the threats in her office in October, Bains said.

Bains said she began screening phone calls and avoiding traveling alone. She occasionally requests a security detail while attending official events.

"My life has changed," she told Reuters. "I don't go anywhere alone anymore. I make sure my staff is with me at all times, which is hard for someone as independent as me."

Reuters spoke to 19 Sikh community leaders, including three elected U.S. officials, who said that they or their organizations have been targeted with threats and harassment in the United States and Canada over the last year – even as law enforcement agencies pursue criminal investigations into the killing of a Sikh separatist leader in Canada and the foiled assassination attempt of another separatist leader in the U.S.

The Sikhs Reuters spoke to described experiencing online harassment; surveillance at their homes and places of worship; the release of personal details online or doxxing, and "swatting," filing a false police report to trigger a law enforcement response.

Seven Sikh activists told Reuters that the FBI or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police warned them last year their lives could be in danger, without specifying the source of the threat.

An FBI official said the bureau issues such warnings when it receives credible evidence of a threat, but declined to comment further. Canadian federal police declined to confirm how many individuals were issued duties to warn.

The FBI also warned the Sikh community more broadly about "transnational repression," efforts by a foreign state to intimidate or threaten political opponents in another country, releasing a public service announcement, opens new tab in Punjabi urging people to report threats or harassment. It also held two invitation-only meetings for Sikh advocacy groups, FBI officials and participants said.

U.S. AND CANADA INVESTIGATE

Meanwhile, four Indian nationals are facing charges of murder and conspiracy in Canada for the June 2023 fatal shooting of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside his gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship, in Surrey, British Columbia.

Attorneys for the four men did not respond to requests for comment.

Separately, the U.S. Justice Department has charged Indian national Nikhil Gupta with trying to arrange the murder of separatist leader Gurpatwant Singh Pannun at the behest of an Indian intelligence official. Gupta pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial in New York. His attorney declined comment.

India has denied involvement in Nijjar's killing and the attempted assassination of Pannun. It has pledged to investigate the plot against Pannun, but not Nijjar.

"Nijjar was someone who was a designated terrorist," Sanjay Kumar Verma, India's High Commissioner to Canada, told Reuters in an interview in June. "For him I have no love lost."

Many of the threats described to Reuters by the Sikh activists originated from anonymous accounts on X. Others came from unknown phone numbers and anonymous text messages, they said.

Reuters was unable to determine the origins of the threats.

At least six activists said they suspect that India's government or its supporters could be behind the harassment, though they acknowledged it can be hard to prove - especially when the threats come from anonymous parties.

Kanwarpal Singh, political secretary of the Punjab-based Dal Khalsa group, which lobbies for a separate state, has accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government of trying to defame and isolate Sikh separatists. He did not specify whether he was referring to separatists in India or abroad.

The Indian embassy in Washington and Modi's office did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Verma did not respond to an email on questions about threats against Sikh separatists and other activists or the criminal cases in Canada and the United States.

In a call with Reuters, two FBI officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity did not comment directly on India's possible role in transnational repression. One said they "look across a really broad range of aggressive countries."

The FBI officials said it can be difficult to determine whether threats are emanating from a foreign government or criminal elements using similar tactics to try to extort victims.

Like Nijjar, Pannun is a proponent of a fringe demand to secede from India and carve out an independent state called Khalistan. The movement led to a violent insurgency in India's Punjab state in the 1980s and 1990s before it was crushed by Delhi.

TIME TO 'PLAN YOUR MURDER'

Pannun said he continues to receive violent threats online, even after the Justice Department made public the assassination plot last November.

"Wherever you run, I will come there, enter it and kill you," according to a May 7 email in Hindi reviewed by Reuters.

In April, the X account @randomatheist_ wrote to Pannun: "Polonium-210 arrived in DC," in an apparent reference to the toxic radioactive isotope used to kill former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.

Pannun's organization Sikhs for Justice has a Washington, D.C. office.

X did not respond to requests for comment.

Pannun referred further questions about the threats to U.S. law enforcement.

In 2019, India declared Sikhs for Justice an unlawful association, citing its involvement in extremist activities. Pannun and 15 other members of the organization were charged with terrorism-related crimes a year later, including trying to encourage a mutiny in the Indian army.

Pannun denies the allegations.

Pritpal Singh, a founder of American Sikh Caucus Committee, an advocacy group which supports secession, also told Reuters the threats and surveillance continued after he received an FBI warning last June.

A few days after the warning, he said, a strange car pulled up and surveilled his California home. He said he noticed a second instance of surveillance in November.

The episodes were captured on home security cameras, and the video was reviewed by Reuters. Pritpal said he reported the surveillance to the FBI.

On the June 18 anniversary of Nijjar's killing, one account on X wrote in Hindi that it was time to "plan your murder." Another X account wrote: "RIP Pritpal." Reuters saw screen shots of both messages, which his family reported to the FBI.

'A KIND OF WORST-CASE SCENARIO'

Nate Schenkkan, senior director of research at the Washington, D.C. non-profit Freedom House, which monitors global civil liberties, said the campaign represents "a kind of worst-case scenario for transnational repression — when a major state acts completely outside the law using all the tools at its disposal to silence dissent in another country."

He said India appeared to have disregarded the potential diplomatic, legal and political consequences of the campaign, pointing to the prosecutions underway in the U.S. and Canada.

Harjap Singh Japhi, a grocery store owner in Greenwood, Indiana who was charged by India with terrorism-related crimes for his prior involvement with Sikhs for Justice, told Reuters that in the fall of 2022 FBI agents came to his home asking about his possible involvement in a bombing in the late 1980s.

The agents told him India had sent the bureau some records related to the attack.

Japhi, 44, said he was a child at the time.

Japhi's wife Rajvinder Shokar also told Reuters about the visit by the FBI.

FBI officials told the news agency that they could not comment on Japhi's case, and Reuters could not independently confirm the account of the bombing or the visit to the couple's home.

False referrals are a common feature of transnational repression, the FBI said, and the agency is working with local law enforcement agencies on how to scrutinize referrals -particularly if the target is a political opponent.

A day after Nijjar's killing, Japhi said he received an anonymous phone call from someone purporting to be a member of an Indian organized crime group warning him he was next.

In December, a since-deleted X account doxxed Japhi by posting his residential and business addresses and local health department inspection records online, according to screen shots shared with Reuters.

Japhi said he reported the threatening phone call and the doxxing to the FBI.

Bains told Reuters she isn't sure whether she experienced transnational repression by the Indian government.

In May, the California Assembly passed a bill she introduced that would train state law enforcement to identify and respond to transnational repression.

"If I'm experiencing it, more people are experiencing it," she said. "And that impacts everyone, not just the Sikh community."⍐

Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch in Washington, Wa Lone in Toronto and Jorge Garcia in Artesia; Additional reporting by Promit Mukherjee in Ottawa and Simon Lewis in Washington. Editing by Don Durfee and Suzanne Goldenberg

தினப்பொறி 06082024

 

Mandapam Camp- A Ceylonese 'Colony' in South India

 

Lankan-origin Yusuf appointed chair of far-right anti-Muslim party

Lankan-origin Yusuf appointed chair of far-right anti-Muslim party

Zia Yusuf poses for a photo at a Velocity Black party in July 2017. Photograph: Miloš Bičanski/Getty Images

Zia Yusuf, whose parents emigrated from Sri Lanka to Britain, has become the chairman of the ultra-right-wing Reform UK Party, which is in the midst of the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim flare-up in the United Kingdom now running into its third week.

Mr. Yusuf, a self-made millionaire, part-funded the Reform UK Party led by the controversial British politician Nigel Farage, who argues against immigration. The newly appointed Chairman Yusuf himself has been quoted as saying that he wants immigration into Britain controlled.

Zia Yusuf with Nigel Farage at a Reform election rally
in Birmingham in June. Reuters

A product of the London School of Economics (LSE), Mr. Yusuf was educated in the UK on a 50 percent government scholarship and later went on to work for Merril Lynch and Goldman Sachs. Thereafter, he started a luxury concierge service, Velocity Black, with a school friend. The service allowed the rich to make restaurant bookings and pay by phone. It also went into offering luxury vacations and designer outfits for the super-rich. Then, the two partners sold the company for US$300 million.

The 37-year-old Mr. Yusuf defended Mr. Farage, who made some controversial statements recently on the Southport stabbing that triggered anti-Muslim rioting, including attacks on mosques. He is reported as telling the Guardian newspapers that Mr. Farage asked some “perfectly valid questions”. He says he wants to make Mr. Farage the Prime Minister of Britain. At the last elections, the Reform UK Party came third in the number of countrywide votes, but fourth in the number of seats won.

The election of the new chair is not without controversy within the Reform UK Party itself. One supporter posted on social media, “I voted for Reform UK to get Britain back to the British, not for it to be led by a Muslim. I will be resigning tomorrow.” Another said, “I don’t buy this ‘good Muslim’ line.” Mr. Yusuf is undeterred and says he believes in British values.

Anti-immigrant riots in Britain: Sri Lankan cricketers stuck in hotel 

The Sri Lanka men’s cricket team, part of whom are currently in Britain to play a Test series, would have never thought they would be stuck in their hotel rooms in one of the major cities of a Western country that—not so long ago—issued travel advisories on Sri Lanka due to domestic developments.

In view of recent anti-immigrant riots in the country, the Sri Lankan team raised security concerns with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) which reassured them that adequate security arrangements are in place.

“Most of the issues seem not to be close to where we are, but everyone is still a little concerned,” one player in England told ESPN Cricinfo. “We can’t really go out to dinner or do anything like that. Mostly, we stay in the hotel. No one wants to run into trouble and get beaten up”.

Other members of the team are scheduled to arrive in England today for a three-match Test series.

Several Islamic countries, such as Malaysia, Nigeria, and the UAE, have issued travel advisories against visiting the UK these days.

Meanwhile, the Indian High Commission in London on Tuesday issued a travel advisory, urging Indian citizens to be vigilant when travelling to the UK due to recent protests and incidents of violence in the area.

Back home, Foreign Affairs Minister Ali Sabry, addressing a news conference, advised Sri Lankans to avoid non-essential travel to Lebanon over the next few days⍐.

5th Column ST - Namal baby 'Coming fourth'!

 

My dear Namal baby,

I thought I must write to you to congratulate you since you have now been chosen as the candidate of the ‘pohottuwa’ party for the big election. Those in your party now say you are the best man for the job, but we all know that in reality, you were the third option and never expected to play this role.

Let’s be honest, Namal, the original plan was to have Uncle Ranil run the race with the support of the ‘pohottuwa’ party. His chances aren’t the best but, with the support of your camp and defectors from several other parties including some ‘telephone’ chaps, it was thought he was still in with a chance.

That was what your ‘appachchi’ and your Basil baappa originally wanted and it all seemed working according to plan. Then some of your ‘pohottuwa’ chaps began hailing Uncle Ranil as their own and claiming that he and he alone could save all of us, even before your party could formally endorse him.

That got you worried. Even your Basil baappa began to have reservations. If Uncle Ranil can manage to charm your diehard ‘pohottuwa’ chaps while being appointed by your party and having only a single MP of his own, what could he possibly do if he was himself elected to office, you wondered.

You were concerned that having Uncle Ranil lead a group of ‘pohottuwa’ MPs was like having a fox in charge of the chicken coop. You feared that, at the end of five years, there would be no ‘pohottuwa’ left. After all, you have seen what he did to the Blue party: its two ‘leaders’ are both in his Cabinet!

That is when you began asking for your pound of flesh. If the ‘pohottuwa’ was to support Uncle Ranil your party needed to be rewarded, for instance, with the Prime Minister’s job. Uncle Ranil, of course, was too smart to make such promises. That only heightened your suspicions about his intentions.

So, you quietly arranged for Dhammika to be the ‘Dummy eka’. He would run on behalf of the ‘pohottuwa’ and probably be an ‘also ran’ but it would have saved you the trouble – and a lot of money too. It won’t be a blot on your political CV and you can still return as a main contender in five years.

That was the plan, wasn’t it, Namal baby? It took Uncle Ranil’s camp by surprise. At first, he must have wondered what happened and would have asked, ‘Et tu, Basil?’. However, he knows, as much as your ‘appachchi’ does, that in politics there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests.

Where you – and even Basil baappa – miscalculated was in thinking that the many minions who served your ‘appachchi’ would be forever loyal to you. Possibly sensing what was in store at the election, one by one, they made a beeline to Uncle Ranil’s camp, much like rats deserting a sinking ship.

You knew people like Prasanna and even your friend Kanchana were inching their way towards Uncle Ranil. Still, the betrayal from those such as Chandrasena in Anuradhapura, Rohitha in Kalutara and Pavithra in Ratnapura must have hurt. Only the real riff-raff like Johnny and Tissa Kutti are with you now.

Still, the greatest shock came at the last minute.  Dhammika, who was meant to be your ‘Dummy eka’ sold a dummy to you and decamped. Days ago, you told us that your job as National Organiser for the ‘pohottuwa’ was to tailor the suit for someone else. Suddenly you had to wear someone else’s suit!

Being primarily a businessman rather than a politician and not being as dumb as you expected him to be, Dhammika suddenly realised that, with most of the ‘pohottuwa’ joining Uncle Ranil, he was only fighting a lost cause and wasting his money. Therefore, he called it quits, citing ‘personal reasons’.

Maybe being a former boss of the free trade zone and having political ambitions do not go well together – remember Upali, he too suddenly vanished without a trace! So, Namal baby, you have become the ‘Chosen One’. Now that you have come forth, beware: you might actually come fourth!

Not so long ago, people accused Uncle Ranil of trying to carry you in his journey along the famous ‘wel paalama’ or suspension bridge. You tried to outsmart him by depriving him of the ‘pohottuwa’ nomination. That has boomeranged on you now and you are stranded on that bridge by yourself.

The next big election will have four main candidates. One of them is the nephew of a President. Two are sons of Presidents. The other main candidate is the son of an average citizen. The outcome of this election will tell us not only about who the best man for the job is – but also a lot about us as a nation.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: The ‘pohottuwa’ is now truly a party of the Rajapaksas for the Rajapaksas and by the Rajapaksas. For decades the Blue party was a party of the Bandaranaikes, for the Bandaranaikes and by the Bandaranaikes. Look where it is now. There is lesson in that, Namal Baby – and Anura never led the Blue party either!

US releases $3.5 billion to Israel-Israel kills nearly 100 in Gaza school refuge

 US releases $3.5 billion to Israel to spend on US weapons, military equipment

By Kanishka Singh August 9, 2024 Reuters

WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Washington will provide Israel $3.5 billion to spend on U.S. weapons and military equipment, the State Department said on Friday, with the release of the money coming months after the U.S. Congress appropriated it during Israel's war in Gaza.

A State Department spokesperson said on Friday that the department notified Congress on Thursday that the government intended to release the billions of dollars worth of foreign military financing to Israel.

CNN reported earlier on the release of this amount which comes from a $14 billion supplemental funding bill for Israel passed by the Congress in April.

Tensions in the Middle East have been mounting and many fear a widening of Israel's war in Gaza that has already killed tens of thousands and caused a humanitarian crisis.

There has been an increased risk of escalation into a broader Middle East war after recent killings of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas' leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and of Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut drew threats of retaliation against Israel.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

The Gaza health ministry says that since then Israel's military assault on the Hamas-governed enclave has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide accusations that Israel denies.

Israeli strike kills nearly 100 in Gaza school refuge, officials say

By Nidal Al-Mughrabi August 10, 2024

CAIRO, Aug 10 (Reuters) - An Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City school compound housing displaced Palestinian families killed around 100 people, the Gaza Civil Emergency Service said on Saturday, while Israel said the toll was inflated and 19 militants were among the dead.

Video from the site showed body parts scattered among rubble and more bodies being carried away and covered by blankets. Empty food tins lay in a puddle of blood, and burned mattresses and a child's doll lay in the debris.

Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, August 10, 2024. REUTERS

In another video, men prayed over a dozen body bags laid on the ground of the Tabeen school complex.

The Israeli strike drew condemnation from Arab states, Turkey, France, Britain and the European Union and an expression of deep concern from the U.S., which has been working with partners to prevent the 10-month-old Gaza conflict from escalating into a regional war.

Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, August 10, 2024. REUTERS

Gaza's Civil Emergency Service, which has a credible record in stating casualty numbers, and the Hamas-run government media office said in separate statements that the complex had been attacked while its occupants were performing dawn prayers.

"So far, there are more than 93 martyrs, including 11 children and six women. There are unidentified remains," Palestinian civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told a televised press conference.

Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, August 10, 2024. REUTERS

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought shelter in Gaza's schools, most of which have been closed since Israel's war against Hamas began.

Around 350 families had been sheltering at the compound, Bassal said - some of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by Israel's onslaught on Gaza.

Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, August 10, 2024. REUTERS

The upper floor housing families and the lower floor, used as a mosque, were both hit, he said.

The Israeli military said the death toll was inflated.

Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, August 10, 2024. REUTERS

"The strike was carried out using three precise munitions, which can not cause the amount of damage that is being reported," the military said in a statement.

It added that no severe damage was caused to the compound, and provided aerial photos and videos which it said proved this.

The compound, and the mosque that was struck within it, served as an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility," Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani said on X, without providing evidence.

An Israeli army official said the part of the mosque that was struck was reserved for men.

Israel says Palestinian militants embed themselves among Gaza's civilians, operating from within schools, hospitals and designated humanitarian zones - which Hamas and its allies deny.

Hamas said the strike was a horrific crime and a serious escalation. Izzat El-Reshiq of Hamas's political office said the dead did not include a single combatant.

A separate strike on Saturday killed three Palestinians in Al-Nuseirat in central Gaza and another killed one person in nearby Deir Al-Balah, medics said.

Later in the day an Israeli strike killed three Palestinians in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, medics said.

Separately, the Israeli military said the head of general security in Hamas' military wing, Walid Alsousi, had been killed in southern Gaza. There was no immediate Hamas comment.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah armed group in Lebanon said it launched a drone attack against military positions in northern Israel. Israel's military said there were no casualties.

Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, August 10, 2024. REUTERS

NEW ROUND OF CEASEFIRE TALKS

The White House said "far too many civilians continue to be killed and wounded" in the Gaza war and it was asking Israeli officials for further details on the school compound strike.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X that he was horrified by the images from the school.

People gather in the yard of a school used by displaced Palestinians as a temporary shelter,
after it was hit by an Israeli strike in Gaza City on August 10, 2024

A spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, urged Israel's ally Washington to end "blind support that leads to the killing of thousands of innocent civilians, including children, women, and the elderly".

Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia all condemned the strike.

A young girl cries inside a school used as a temporary shelter for displaced
Palestinians in Gaza City, following an Israeli strike

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said it should serve as a turning point as mediators push to resume ceasefire talks.

A Hamas official told Reuters the group was studying a new proposal for discussion but did not elaborate.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera television, Khalil Al-Hayya, the head of the Hamas team for the indirect ceasefire talks with Israel, said statements of condemnation were no longer sufficient.

An elderly man sits amid the rubble inside

"Dismiss (Israeli) ambassadors, close down embassies and sever ties with the occupation," he said.

Egypt, the United States and Qatar have scheduled a new round of ceasefire negotiations for Thursday, as fears grow of a broader conflict involving Iran and Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has said he will not end the war until Hamas no longer poses a threat to Israelis, said he would send a delegation.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich pushed back against the White House's accusation on Friday that he was "dead wrong" in asserting that the ceasefire deal on the table would be a surrender to Hamas.

Most are now crowded into ramshackle tent camps in an area of about 50 square
kilometres on the Gaza coast

In a post on X, Smotrich, one of Netanyahu's far-right coalition partners, thanked the U.S. for its support for Israel but insisted it "will not submit to any external pressure that would harm Israel's security."

Israel launched its assault on Gaza after Hamas fighters stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Since then, nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the health ministry.

Gaza health officials say most of the fatalities have been civilians but Israel says at least a third are fighters. Israel says it has lost 329 soldiers in Gaza.⍐

U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts

 

U.S. Aid to Israel in Four Charts:

Israel has long been the leading recipient of U.S. foreign aid, including military support. That aid has come under heightened scrutiny amid Israel’s months long war to eliminate Hamas.

Article by Jonathan Masters and Will Merrow Last updated May 31, 2024 cfr 

The United States was the first country to recognize the provisional government of the state of Israel upon its founding in 1948, and it has for many decades been a strong and steady supporter of the Jewish state. Israel has received hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid in the post–World War II era, a level of support that reflects many factors, including a U.S. commitment to Israel’s security and the countries’ shared foreign policy interests in a volatile and strategically important part of the world.

The two countries do not have a mutual defense pact, as the United States has with allies such as Japan and fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, Israel is among a short list of “major non-NATO allies” and has privileged access to the most advanced U.S. military platforms and technologies.

But ongoing U.S. military aid to Israel has come under greater scrutiny amid Israel’s monthslong war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. More than thirty-four thousand Palestinians, including a large share of civilians, have died in conflict, according to the United Nations and the Gaza health ministry. Israel is responding to Hamas’s October 7 attack that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis, the deadliest in the country’s history. The Palestinian militant group’s actions were widely condemned as terrorism by Western governments.

How much U.S. aid does Israel receive?

Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since its founding, receiving about $310 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance. The United States has also provided large foreign aid packages to other Middle Eastern countries, particularly Egypt and Iraq, but Israel stands apart.

The United States provided Israel considerable economic assistance from 1971 to 2007, but nearly all U.S. aid today goes to support Israel’s military, the most advanced in the region. The United States has provisionally agreed via a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to provide Israel with $3.8 billion per year through 2028. 

Since the start of  Israel's war with Hamas on October 7, 2023, the United States has enacted legislation providing at least $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel, which includes $3.8 billion from a bill in March 2024 (in line with the current MOU) and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriations act in April 2024.

How does Israel use the aid?

Most of the aid—approximately $3.3 billion a year—is provided as grants under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, funds that Israel must use to purchase U.S. military equipment and services. In October, the Joe Biden administration said Israel had nearly six hundred active FMF cases, totalling around $24 billion. Israel has also historically been permitted to use a portion of its FMF aid to buy equipment from Israeli defense firms—a benefit not granted to other recipients of U.S. military aid—but this domestic procurement is to be phased out in the next few years. U.S. aid reportedly accounts for some 15 percent of Israel’s defense budget. Israel, like many other countries, also buys U.S. military products outside of the FMF program.

Additionally, $500 million a year is slated for Israeli and joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs, in which the two countries collaborate on the research, development, and production of these systems used by Israel, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow II. Iron Dome was solely developed by Israel, but the United States has been a production partner since 2014. For instance, the U.S. military contractor Raytheon manufactures Tamir interceptor missiles for Israel’s Iron Dome at its facilities in Arizona.

Are there any conditions or restrictions attached to the aid?

Transfers of U.S. military equipment to Israel, as to other foreign governments, are subject to relevant U.S. law. The president must notify Congress [PDF] before selling foreign powers major weapon systems or services valued above a certain dollar threshold, and lawmakers are allowed a period to review the sale. For transactions with Israel (and other close U.S. allies), the threshold that triggers a fifteen-day congressional review ranges from $25 million to $300 million, depending on the defense articles or services.

Congress can block a sale through a joint resolution, although this has never happened. In special cases, the president can bypass the congressional review if they deem that a national security emergency exists. President Biden has used this expedited waiver process for both Israel and Ukraine. For smaller transactions that don’t meet the dollar threshold, no congressional review is required.

The United States cannot provide security assistance to foreign governments or groups that commit gross human rights violations, a red line enshrined in the so-called Leahy Law. Moreover, the Biden administration announced in February 2023 that it would not provide arms to recipients deemed likely to commit serious human rights violations. Some legal scholars and other critics have alleged that the United States has not applied the Leahy Law with regard to Israel as it has with other Middle Eastern countries.

Any military aid that the United States provides to recipients must only be used according to agreed-upon terms and conditions, and it is incumbent on the U.S. government to monitor the end use of the equipment it provides. For instance, the Ronald Reagan administration banned transfers of cluster munitions to Israel for several years in the 1980s after it determined that Israel had used them on civilian targets during its invasion of Lebanon.

Israel has agreed to use U.S. weapons only in self-defense. Outside of this, Biden administration officials said in mid-October that they had not placed further limitations or constraints on how Israel uses U.S. weapons, although they said that Israel should observe international law. In February 2024, four months into the Israel-Hamas war, Biden issued a national security memo requiring recipients of U.S. military aid to give written assurances that they would observe international law in their use of the aid, and that they would facilitate the delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance in the area of armed conflict where the U.S. military aid is being used. 

In May, the administration issued a follow-up report [PDF] that found it “reasonable to assess” that Israel has used U.S. weapons since October 7 “in instances inconsistent with its IHL [International Humanitarian Law] obligations.” Days later, the White House said it was pausing a shipment of large bombs to Israel ahead of a pending assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, although it noted it would continue other military assistance. “Civilians have been killed in Gaza as a consequence of those bombs and other ways in which [Israel goes] after population centers,” President Biden said in an interview with CNN.

What military aid has the United States provided Israel since the October 7 attacks?

Israel has been using American-made weapons against its foes, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, for decades. Since October 7, the Biden administration has reportedly made more than one hundred military aid transfers to Israel, although only two—totalling about $250 million—have met the aforementioned congressional review threshold and been made public. The Israeli military has reportedly received expedited deliveries of weapons from a strategic stockpile that the United States has maintained in Israel since the 1980s. Shortly after Hamas’s attack, the United States also agreed to lease Israel two Iron Dome missile defense batteries that Washington had previously purchased from the country.

The extraordinary flow of aid has included tank and artillery ammunition, bombs, rockets, and small arms. In April 2024, news reports said the Biden administration was considering new military sales to Israel that are valued at more than $18 billion and would include fifty F-15 fighter aircraft, although the shipments wouldn't arrive for years. The Israeli military is also reportedly purchasing some high-tech products, such as surveillance drones, directly from smaller U.S. manufacturers.

What is Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME)?

QME has been a conceptual backbone of U.S. military aid to Israel for decades, and it was formally enshrined in U.S. law in 2008 [PDF-https://www.congress.gov/110/plaws/publ429/PLAW-110publ429.pdf]. It requires the U.S. government to maintain Israel’s ability “to defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damage and casualties.” QME is based on NATO military planning vis-a-vis a potential conflict with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War.

Under the 2008 law, the United States must ensure that any weapons it provides to other countries in the Middle East do not compromise Israel’s QME. In several cases, this has required the United States to provide Israel with offsetting weaponry as part of larger regional arms sales. QME has also ensured that Israel is the first in the region to receive access to the most sophisticated U.S. military weapons and platforms, such as the F-35 stealth fighter, of which Israel has fifty.

Why is there growing public scrutiny of U.S. aid to Israel?

Israel received widespread support from the West immediately following Hamas’s attack on October 7, but pro-Israel sentiment among some groups in the United States and many other countries has weakened as Israel’s campaign against Hamas has also killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and has exacerbated a humanitarian crisis that is spiraling toward famine. According to a March 2024 poll by the Pew Research Center, most Americans (64 percent) held favorable views of the Israeli people, while a slight majority (51 percent) viewed the Israeli government unfavorably.

Some U.S. and foreign leaders, the United Nations, human rights and activist groups, and other parties have voiced growing concern about Israel’s heavy air and ground assaults on Gaza, as well as its alleged obstruction of humanitarian aid to the densely populated enclave. Israel has said the high civilian death toll is a result of Hamas using civilians as “human shields.” In December 2023, South Africa filed a case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of perpetrating genocide, a claim which Israel and the United States both denounced as unfounded. In May, the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged both Hamas and Israeli leaders with multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Recent polls suggest that American adults are divided in their views of U.S. military aid to Israel, with a significant divergence among age groups. Support for military aid to Israel appears strongest among older respondents (ages sixty-five and older) and weakest among younger adults (ages eighteen to twenty-nine).

While Biden has been an ardent supporter of Israel’s right to self-defense and continues to supply Israel with military aid, he and some members of the U.S. Congress have been increasingly critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s prosecution of the war and his government’s planning for postwar Gaza. In December, Biden warned that Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza risked costing Israel its international support. Meanwhile, some Democrat lawmakers sought to condition U.S. aid on commitments from Israel to limit civilian casualties. 

In recent weeks, the Biden administration paused a shipment of bombs to Israel, effectively acknowledging that Israel was using American-made weapons in a manner that resulted in civilian deaths in Gaza and that risked violating the laws of war. The White House has also spoken out against what they view as Netanyahu’s lack of planning for postwar Gaza. “Israel’s on the trajectory potentially to inherit an insurgency with many armed Hamas left or, if it leaves, a vacuum filled by chaos, filled by anarchy,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May 2024. Netanyahu has also faced criticism from his own defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for failing to form a vision for “a governing alternative in Gaza.”

The Biden administration, however, rallied behind the Israeli government in late May after ICC investigators applied for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over allegations of war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories during the latest war against Hamas and possibly before. The White House called the ICC’s decision “outrageous” and “profoundly wrong-headed.” The ICC simultaneously announced warrant applications for several Hamas leaders as well.

Prior to the war, the U.S.-Israel relationship had suffered some strains over the rhetoric and policies of Netanyahu’s government, including its plans to curb the Israeli Supreme Court’s powers and its approval of more Jewish settlements in the West Bank—critics say the settlements violate international law and undermine prospects for a future state for Palestinians. The so-called two-state solution has been a long-running U.S. foreign policy goal, including for the Biden administration. Some U.S. lawmakers have raised these criticisms in the debate over U.S. aid to Israel during the war in Gaza.

In recent years, some U.S. and Israeli analysts have said that U.S. aid to Israel should be reevaluated because Israel is now a wealthy country—the fourteenth richest per capita—with one of the most advanced militaries in the world. Unlike Cold War-era Israel in the 1970s, when large amounts of U.S. aid started to flow, modern Israel is more than capable of providing for its own security, and the U.S. aid unnecessarily distorts the bilateral relationship and the countries’ respective foreign policies, these observers say. CFR Senior Fellow Steven A. Cook wrote in May 2024 that U.S. military aid should be phased out over ten years and replaced with a series of bilateral agreements on security cooperation, a move he says would benefit both countries and help normalize their relations.

Martin S. Indyk, former U.S. ambassador to Israel and current CFR Distinguished Fellow, has also called for reductions in U.S. aid. “The U.S.-Israel relationship would be a lot healthier without this dependence. Time for Israel at seventy-five to stand on its own two feet,” he wrote on X in June 2023.

Some experts argue that U.S. aid actually weakens Israel’s defense industrial base while serving primarily as a guaranteed revenue stream for U.S. defense contractors.

On the other hand, supporters of continued aid say that it fosters ongoing, important collaboration between U.S. and Israeli defense industries and experts, and in the end helps the countries counter shared threats in the Middle East, particularly Iran. U.S. aid remains a “vital and cost-effective expenditure” that enhances U.S. national security, and it should not be reduced or conditioned, wrote more than three hundred Republican lawmakers in 2021. Ending U.S. military aid today “would send a message to all of Israel’s enemies that Israel’s greatest friend was stepping away, so they should double down on their plans for more, and more deadly, assaults on the Jewish state,” wrote CFR Senior Fellow Elliott Abrams in September 2023.⍐