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arms sales
Germany to Halt Arms Sales to Israel After Netanyahu Cabinet Approves Gaza City Takeover
The German government has long been one of the most vehement defenders and top financial contributors to Israel's assault on Gaza.
Aug 08, 2025
Israel's approval of a plan to take over Gaza City—over the objections of human rights groups and the country's own military leaders—marked a red line for one of its closest allies on Friday, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announcing his government would halt sales of weapons that could be used by Israel in its occupation of the besieged enclave.
Merz said that "the even harsher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, approved by the Israeli cabinet last night, makes it increasingly difficult for the German government to see" how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stated goal of defeating Hamas and securing the release of hostages will be achieved.
Netanyahu's security ministers approved a proposal to direct the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to fully take over Gaza City in the northern part of the enclave, which has already been badly damaged by the assault Israel began in October 2023 but has not been entirely razed like several other cities. Israeli hostages are believed to be in central Gaza.
The move is thought to be the first step in Netanyahu's plan to fully occupy Gaza, which United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk said Friday would "result in more massive forced displacement, more killing, more unbearable suffering, senseless destruction, and atrocity crimes" against Palestinian civilians.
Merz said Friday that "under these circumstances, the German government will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice."
Germany has been a vehement defender of Israel's bombardment of Gaza, which it began in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack—and which has killed more than 61,000 people, the majority of whom have been women and children. Israeli soldiers have long said they’ve been directed to kill civilians, and Israel's assault has also included a near-total blockade on humanitarian aid which has starved to death nearly 200 Palestinians so far, about half of whom have been children.
"Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorize any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice."
In the first 19 months of the war, Germany was one of the biggest international suppliers of weapons to the IDF, issuing arms export licenses worth 485 million euros ($564 million). The country has provided firearms, ammunition, weapons components, electronic equipment, and armored vehicles, according to Merz’ government.
Germany has not followed the lead of France, the United Kingdom, and Canada, which have recently signaled they would join the vast majority of U.N. member states in recognizing Palestinian statehood, and it opposed the suspension of the European Union-Israel Association Agreement last month.
Germany's center-left Social Democratic party has been calling on Merz to halt arms sales for months as Israel has blocked nearly all humanitarian aid and escalated attacks, including a ground offensive, following a brief cease-fire. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a U.N.-backed monitor of worldwide hunger, said last month that famine is unfolding across Gaza due to the blockade.
Social Democratic Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said Merz' decision was "just."
"The humanitarian suffering in Gaza is unbearable," said Klingbeil.
The German public has also expressed plummeting support for their government's complicity in Israel's bombardment of Gaza, with 66% of Germans saying Merz should "exert greater influence over Israel to change its actions in Gaza" in a poll published this week by the country's public broadcaster.
German citizens' growing disapproval of Israel's attack on Gaza has matched that of the public in the United Kingdom, which has also supplied military aid to Israel since October 2023, mostly in the form of parts of F-35 fighter jets.
A poll last month by YouGov showed Britons increasingly support and sympathize with Palestinians and oppose the Israeli government's actions in Gaza.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday denounced the Israeli plan to take over Gaza City, calling for "a cease-fire, a surge in humanitarian aid, the release of all hostages by Hamas, and a negotiated solution."
But Starmer made no mention of ending all arms exports to Israel.
"If the government was truly horrified by Israel's occupation of Gaza, it would stop supplying them with the weapons they need to carry it out," said former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, now an independent member of Parliament. "The Prime Minister can condemn Israel's plans all he wants. He cannot hide the truth: His government is complicit in genocide."
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The Sudan Crisis and America's Complicity: When Corruption Fuels Atrocity
The world is watching. So are the people of Sudan. The question is whether the United States will choose complicity—or conscience. We must act now.
Jun 10, 2025
In a world deluged with crises—each vying for our limited attention—the catastrophe unfolding in Sudan has remained largely invisible to the American public. Yet, by almost any measure, it is among the most severe humanitarian emergencies of our time. Over 30 million people—two-thirds of Sudan’s population—now require humanitarian support. More than 12 million have been displaced, and famine threatens to claim countless lives. This is not a distant tragedy; it is a crisis in which American policy and the interests of American capitalists are deeply entangled.
Now, Congress is poised to vote on a set of resolutions that could finally interrupt the United States’ role in fueling this disaster. You can call your Senator and ask them to support S.J.Res.51, S.J.Res.52, S.J.Res.53, and S.J.Res.54—the Joint Resolutions of Disapproval by Senator Chris Murphy et. al. that would block more than $3.5 billion in proposed arms sales to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar. The Congressional Switchboard is at 202-224-3121.
This legislation is likely to come up this week and that makes this a rare moment of real leverage for American activists and concerned citizens. The urgency is clear: unless Congress acts, the U.S. risks deepening its complicity in Sudan’s suffering.
At the epicenter of Sudan’s unraveling is the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group whose origins trace back to the notorious Janjaweed militias involved in the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s. The RSF has been implicated in a series of systematic atrocities: targeted ethnic violence, mass killings, forced displacement, and widespread sexual violence. Investigations by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International have all pointed to the same grim conclusion: the RSF’s actions constitute war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and, in the assessment of the U.S. State Department, genocide.
The mechanics of how these atrocities are sustained have already come into focus. According to Amnesty International, recently manufactured Emirati armored personnel carriers are now in the hands of the RSF. Flight data and satellite imagery have revealed a pattern: cargo planes departing from the UAE, landing at remote airstrips in Chad, and then offloading weapons and equipment that would soon appear on the front lines in Sudan. A New York Times investigation concluded that the UAE was “expanding its covert campaign to back a winner in Sudan, funneling money, weapons and, now, powerful drones” to the RSF.
What makes this all the more alarming is that the UAE is one of America’s closest military partners—and a major recipient of U.S. arms. Despite repeated assurances to Washington that it would not arm Sudan’s belligerents, the UAE has continued these transfers, as confirmed by the Biden Administration in one of its last acts as well as by members of Congress.
There is, however, another angle to this story—an angle that speaks to the corrosion of U.S. foreign policy by incredibly narrow financial interests. President Donald Trump and his family have cultivated deep financial ties with both the UAE and Qatar. The UAE has invested $2 billion in a Trump family crypto venture; Qatar has bestowed a $400 million on that luxury aircraft everyone’s heard about, intended for the U.S. presidential fleet, in a gesture that blurs the line between diplomacy and personal favor. These transactions are not just unseemly; they are emblematic of this new era in which U.S. foreign policy is increasingly shaped by the private interests of a handful of oligarchs.
To call this “kleptocracy” is not hyperbole. The intertwining of arms sales, foreign influence, and personal enrichment undermines both U.S. standing and the interests of the average American. Each weapon sold, each deal brokered, risks making the United States more complicit in the suffering of Sudan’s civilians.
To call this “kleptocracy” is not hyperbole. The intertwining of arms sales, foreign influence, and personal enrichment undermines both U.S. standing and the interests of the average American.
The Sudan crisis is a reminder that America’s actions abroad are neither abstract nor inconsequential—and all the uniqueness of the Trump 2.0 administration hasn’t changed that. U.S. policies still reverberate in the lives of millions. As citizens, we have a responsibility to demand that our leaders act not out of expedience or self-interest, but out of a sense of justice and human dignity. With a congressional vote imminent, the window for meaningful action is open—but it is closing fast.
The world is watching. So are the people of Sudan. The question is whether the United States will choose complicity—or conscience. Please call your Senators today at 202-224-3121.Keep ReadingShow Less
The Genocide Denial of the 'Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace' Crowd
The Israeli government has displayed clear and unequivocal genocidal intent. Continuing to arm Israel with U.S. weapons means full complicity in what they do with them.
Mar 19, 2025
Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza comes several months after both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports concluding without equivocation that Israel was engaged in genocide. But very few members of Congress dare to acknowledge that reality, while their silence and denials scream out complicity.
In a New York Times interview last weekend, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer put deep moral evasion on display. Among the “slogans” that are used when criticizing Israel, he said, “The one that bothers me the most is genocide. Genocide is described as a country or some group tries to wipe out a whole race of people, a whole nationality of people. So, if Israel was not provoked and just invaded Gaza and shot at random Palestinians, Gazans, that would be genocide. That’s not what happened.”
Schumer is wrong. The international Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”—with such actions as killing, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
It would be untenable to publicly acknowledge the reality of Israeli genocide while continuing to support shipping more weaponry for the genocide.
Such actions by Israel have been accompanied by clear evidence of genocidal intent—underscored by hundreds of statements by Israeli leaders and policy shapers. Scarcely three months into the Israeli war on Gaza, scholars Raz Segal and Penny Green pointed out, a database compiled by the Law for Palestine human rights organization “meticulously documents and collates 500 statements that embody the Israeli state’s intention to commit genocide and incitement to genocide since October 7, 2023.”
Those statements “by people with command authority—state leaders, war cabinet ministers and senior army officers—and by other politicians, army officers, journalists and public figures reveal the widespread commitment in Israel to the genocidal destruction of Gaza.”
Since March 2, the United Nations reports, “Israeli authorities have halted the entry of all lifesaving supplies, including food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, for 2.1 million people.” Now, Israel’s horrendous crusade to destroy Palestinian people in Gaza—using starvation as a weapon of war and inflicting massive bombardment on civilians—has resumed after a two-month ceasefire.
On Tuesday, children were among the more than 400 people killed by Israeli airstrikes, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed that “this is only the beginning.”
It’s almost impossible to find a Republican in Congress willing to criticize the pivotal U.S. backing for Israel’s methodical killing of civilians. It’s much easier to find GOP lawmakers who sound bloodthirsty.
A growing number of congressional Democrats—still way too few—have expressed opposition. In mid-November, 17 Senate Democrats and two independents voted against offensive arms sales to Israel. But in reality, precious few Democratic legislators really pushed to impede such weapons shipments until after last November’s election. Deference to President Biden was the norm as he actively enabled the genocide to continue.
This week, renewal of Israel’s systematic massacres of Palestinian civilians has hardly sparked a congressional outcry. Silence or platitudes have been the usual.
For “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street, the largest and most influential liberal Zionist organization in the United States, evasions have remained along with expressions of anguish. On Tuesday the group’s founder and president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, issued a statement decrying “the decision by Netanyahu to reignite this horrific war” and calling for use of “all possible leverage to pressure each side to restore the ceasefire.” But, as always, J Street did not call for the U.S. government to stop providing the weapons that make the horrific war possible.
This week, renewal of Israel’s systematic massacres of Palestinian civilians has hardly sparked a congressional outcry. Silence or platitudes have been the usual.
That’s where genocide denial comes in. For J Street, as for members of Congress who’ve kept voting to enable the carnage with the massive U.S.-to-Israel weapons pipeline, support for that pipeline requires pretending that genocide isn’t really happening.
While writing an article for The Nation (“Has J Street Gone Along With Genocide?”), I combed through 132 news releases from J Street between early October 2023 and the start of the now-broken ceasefire in late January of this year. I found that on the subject of whether Israel was committing genocide, J Street “aligned itself completely with the position of the U.S. and Israeli governments.”
J Street still maintains the position that it took last May, when the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah. “J Street continues to reject the allegation of genocide in this case,” a news release said.
It would be untenable to publicly acknowledge the reality of Israeli genocide while continuing to support shipping more weaponry for the genocide. That’s why those who claim to be “pro-peace” while supporting more weapons for war must deny the reality of genocide in Gaza.
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