Regional News :Report: US Sent 600,000 Gas Canisters, Other ...

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Report: US Sent 600,000 Gas Canisters, Other Weaponry to “Israel”

Local Editor

A new policy paper published last week by the US Campaign to End the "Israeli" Occupation, documented a number of cases over the past decade, in which US-produced and financed weapons and ammunition were used to kill unarmed Palestinians and US citizens.
Report: US Sent 600,000 Gas Canisters, Other Weaponry to “Israel”

Josh Ruebner, the national advocacy director for organizations, and author of the new policy paper said on Monday March 5, "US military aid to "Israel" is a policy that is running an autopilot and must be reconsidered".
"US Weapons provided to "Israel" at taxpayer expense make the US complicit in "Israel's" human rights abuses of Palestinians living under "Israel's" 44-year military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem [al-Quds] and Gaza Strip and defeat US foreign policy objectives of halting "Israeli" settlement expansion, ending "Israeli" military occupation and establishing a just and lasting "Israeli"-Palestinian peace", he added.

The said report noted that between the years 2000 and 2009, the US transferred more than 670 million weapons and related equipment to "Israel".
Also, the report indicated that during the same period, "Israel" killed, by means of the US weapons, at least 2969 unarmed Palestinians, among which were 1128 children. This stands as a blatant violation of the Foreign Assistance Act and Arms Export Control Act.
The aforementioned act stated that "no security assistance may be provided to any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights".

Furthermore, the US organization's report also found that the "Israeli" military loads many of its guns with US-manufactured high-velocity tear gas canisters and rubber-coated bullets, which mainly has led to the deaths of Palestinians throughout the West Bank.
"From fiscal year 2000 to 2009, the State Department licensed - and US taxpayers funded - the delivery of more than 595,000 tear gas canisters and other ‘riot control' equipment to the "Israeli" military, valued at more than $20.5 million", the report confirmed.

"With the same amount of money that the US gives each year to fund weapons for Israel, the federal government could instead fund affordable housing vouchers for 350,000 low-income families, or green jobs training for 500,000 unemployed workers, or early reading programs for 900,000 at-risk students, or primary health care to 24 million people without insurance", according to the report.
"Far from being a strategic benefit to the US, [military aid to "Israel"] is actually a growing political, economic and strategic liability," Ruebner said.

In addition, Ruebner emphasized that US lawmakers could take several steps to prevent additional human rights violations, particularly through the enactment of laws that would make US military aid conditional on freezing "Israeli" settlement building in the West Bank and ending the siege of the impoverished Gaza Strip.

Source: Inter Press Service (IPS), Edited by moqawama.org