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'Foreign Billionaires First, America Last': Critics Slam GOP Over Mining Approval Near Minnesota Boundary Waters
"We don’t allow mining in Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, Acadia, Glacier, or any of our nation’s revered national parks—and we shouldn’t allow it in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, either," said one congresswoman.
Apr 16, 2026
Democratic lawmakers and environmental protection groups condemned Senate Republicans on Thursday for their "heartbreaking" passage of a House resolution to overturn a 20-year moratorium on mining in the watershed of Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the nation's most visited wilderness area—a vote that critics said was the result of years of lobbying by a foreign-owned mining firm.
House Joint Resolution 140 now heads to President Donald Trump's desk, nearly a decade after Chilean conglomerate Antofagasta, the owner of Twin Metals Minnesota, began discussing with Trump's first administration its desire to build a copper mine over the pristine area.
"Because of this extremely short-sighted vote, our nation’s most-visited wilderness area faces the threat of permanent toxic pollution," said Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.). "Why? So Antofagasta, a Chilean corporation that owns Twin Metals, can mine American copper and ship it to China to be smelted and sold on the global market. Twin Metals has been lobbying President Trump and Republicans in Congress for over ten years to remove the protections from this watershed and renew their mine plans to extract American minerals at the expense of freshwater for future generations."
The 50-49 vote in the Senate, said Environment America, puts the 1.1 million-acre wilderness area for heavy metals leaching into the soil and water through acid mine drainage.
Toxic runoff from copper mining, said the group, "ultimately poisons the land and water surrounding a mine, making the ecosystem unlivable for wildlife."
Leda Huta, vice president of government relations for American Rivers, called the vote "a betrayal of the public trust."
“We share in the deep disappointment of millions of Americans who expect our elected leaders to protect our clean water, our abundant wildlife, and access for all to unmatched outdoor recreation spaces," said Huta. "This is a heartbreaking moment.”
Amanda Hefner, manager of Save the Boundary Waters Action Fund, wrote in a column in Minnesota Reformer last October that "in a water-rich environment like the Boundary Waters, with its low buffering capacity, pollution would spread quickly through interconnected lakes and streams." She also wrote that it was "reckless" to risk the preserve's 17,000 jobs and over $1 billion in annual revenue "for a foreign-owned mine that would pollute and leave toxic waste for generations."
According to Jacobin, Antofagasta spent $200,000 on lobbying in the final quarter of 2024 and $230,000 in the first quarter of 2025 "on issues including federal leases for Twin Metals." The Chilean company is owned by billionaire Andrónico Luksic, who rented out his $5.5 million mansion in Washington, DC to Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband, then-White House adviser Jared Kushner, from 2017-21.
The Sierra Club noted that to pass the mining ban reversal, Senate Republicans "utilized a baseless interpretation of the Congressional Review Act (CRA)."
"The CRA only allows Congress to disapprove of administrative rules," said the group. "No previous administration has considered mineral withdrawals to be 'rules' that are subject to the CRA."
Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, said that "allowing a foreign company to open a toxic mine on its doorstep puts a fragile ecosystem at risk and shows the Trump Administration will always act to benefit corporations over the American people.”
“The Boundary Waters is one of the country’s most iconic wilderness areas, visited by thousands every year. It should be a place for recreation and conservation, not for pollution and exploitation," said Manuel.
Despite Trump's refrain, "America First," Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said the vote made clear that "for the GOP, it’s foreign billionaires first, America last."
McCollum warned that the mining moratorium was "the only way to protect this wilderness, which is home to some of the cleanest water in the entire world.
"We don’t allow mining in Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion, Acadia, Glacier, or any of our nation’s revered national parks—and we shouldn’t allow it in the watershed of the Boundary Waters, either," said the congresswoman. "One hundred percent of copper mines have failed, leading to polluted waters. This case will be no different."
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House Democrats Say 'Impunity' for Israel Violates US Human Rights Law
"Numerous credible reports of gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces have rightly placed U.S. enforcement of the Leahy Law in sharp focus."
Oct 04, 2024
As the death tolls from the U.S.-backed Israeli assaults on Gaza and Lebanon neared 42,000 and 2,000 respectively, a group of House Democrats this week urged the Biden administration to hold Israel accountable to human rights standards established under existing domestic law.
In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin dated September 30 but first published Friday by HuffPost, the Democratic lawmakers—Reps. Jim McGovern (Mass.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), Betty McCollum (Minn.), Mark Pocan (Wis.), and Joaquin Castro (Texas)—expressed their "deep alarm regarding the lack of U.S. enforcement of the Leahy Law as it pertains to U.S. assistance to Israel."
Named after its author, former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the Leahy Laws were approved in two rounds in the late 1990s. The legislation built on the Foreign Assitance Act of 1961, which prohibits U.S. military aid to foreign security forces that commit gross human rights violations.
"We strongly urge you to apply the law as written and act swiftly to bar any Israeli military unit that faces credible accusations of committing a gross violation of human rights from receiving U.S. assistance or training," the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
"As longtime friends and allies of Israel, we have supported, and continue to support, security assistance to Israel for the purposes of legitimate self-defense," the letter states. "Israel continues to face serious threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist groups. As it defends against these threats, Israel must ensure it is using U.S. security assistance and funding in compliance with U.S. law—whether in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, or elsewhere."
According to the letter:Numerous credible reports of gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces have rightly placed U.S. enforcement of the Leahy Law in sharp focus. Israeli and international human rights organizations have released credible reports of Israeli security units subjecting Palestinians in Israeli detention facilities to torture, ill-treatment, prolonged detetion without charges or trial, and rape under color of law. Extensive investigations by reputable media outlets have also documented multiple instances of civilians carrying white flags being shot and killed by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza.
The letter comes ahead of the anniversary of the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and that country's retaliation, which has left more than 148,000 Palestinians in Gaza dead, maimed, or missing and millions more forcibly displaced, starved, and sickened.
Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice, and International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for leaders of Hamas.
In recent weeks, Israel has also ramped up airstrikes and launched a ground invasion in Lebanon, from which Hezbollah has been launching aerial attacks on Israel since shortly after October 7. Thousands of Lebanese have been killed or wounded.
All of this is enabled by tens of billions of dollars worth of nearly unconditional U.S. military aid and diplomatic cover including multiple vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions. While the Biden administration delayed shipment of a limited number of heavy bombs of a type that Israel was using to massacre civilians in densely populated areas, those shipments soon resumed, even as the Gaza death toll soared ever higher.
"The failure of the United States to consistently apply our own laws has contributed to a culture of impunity in the IDF that actively endangers the lives of U.S. citizens," the lawmakers asserted before highlighting "gross violation[s] of human rights" perpetrated by Israeli forces against several Americans.
These include Omar Assad, an elderly former Milwaukee grocer who in January 2023 was dragged from his vehicle, blindfolded, gagged, and handcuffed before falling silent while being detained in Jiljilya; renowned Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, who multiple probes found was deliberately shot dead while covering an IDF raid in the West Bank in May 2022; and, most recently, 26-year-old International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot in the head during a September 6 demonstration against Israel's illegal West Bank settler colonies.
Israeli impunity for killing Americans far predates the examples listed in the letter. For example, in 2003, ISM activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a U.S.-supplied Israeli military bulldozer while trying to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank. In 1967 Israeli warplanes and warships repeatedly attacked the spy ship USS Liberty in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 34 sailors and others and wounding 171 more in what numerous senior U.S. officials including the then-secretary of state and CIA director said was a deliberate act.
At least one American has also been killed by Israeli bombing in Lebanon this week. Hajj Kamel Ahmad Jawad, 56, of Dearborn, Michigan was killed in an airstrike Tuesday while in Nabatieth in southern Lebanon caring for his sick mother and volunteering to help elderly, disabled, and injured patients at a local hospital.
"When it functions properly, the Leahy Law serves two crucial purposes: It prevents U.S. complicity in gross violations of human rights, and it deters violations by incentivizing foreign governments to hold perpetrators accountable," the Democratic lawmakers wrote in their letter. "However, the Leahy Law can only serve these purposes when it is enforced."
Indeed, successive U.S. administrations have supported some of the world's worst human rights violators—including the perpetrators of genocidal mass murder in Indonesia, Paraguay, Cambodia, Guatemala, Bangladesh, East Timor, Kurdistan, and Gaza—since the passage of the Foreign Assistance Act and Leahy Laws.
"We strongly urge you to uphold the rule of law, bar assistance to any unit that is credibly implicated in a gross violation of human rights, and ensure perpetrators of crimes against American citizens face accountability and justice," the letter's signers concluded.
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House Dems Tell Biden to 'Enforce US Law' as Israel Obstructs Gaza Aid
"Israel’s restriction of this aid and Prime Minister Netanyahu's refusal to address U.S. concerns on this issue is absolutely unacceptable," wrote six House Democrats.
Mar 28, 2024
While United Nations experts and human rights groups around the world continue to call on U.S. President Biden to end his support for Israel as it bombards Gaza and blocks aid, six House Democrats told the president that his policy in the region is a straightforward violation of U.S. law, and must change immediately.
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) led lawmakers including Reps. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) in calling on Biden to "enforce U.S. law" with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu government.
With Israel continuing to block aid to Gaza—even as the International Food Security Phase Classification initiative (IPC) warns that parts of northern Gaza are already facing famine—the lawmakers said Netanyahu is "repeatedly interfering in U.S. humanitarian operations in direct violation of the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act—Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961."
The Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act states that the U.S. cannot provide military aid to any country that is prohibiting or restricting the delivery of U.S. assistance into an area.
Despite State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller's claim this week that Israel is complying with international humanitarian law "when it comes to the conduct of the war or the provision of humanitarian assistance," the International Court of Justice on Thursday ordered Israel to ensure the delivery of urgently needed aid and warned that "famine is setting in" due to Israel's actions.
"The need to deliver humanitarian aid by any means possible has never been more pressing," wrote the lawmakers on Thursday. "This fact was emphasized by your administration's decision to begin airdropping supplies into Gaza in recent weeks, and your announcement of U.S. participation in constructing a temporary port in Gaza to expand the flow of aid."
"Israel's restriction of this aid and Prime Minister Netanyahu's refusal to address U.S. concerns on this issue is absolutely unacceptable," they said.
The letter follows similar calls from U.S. senators and more than two dozen human rights groups who earlier pointed out that Biden need look no further than the Foreign Assistance Act to know that the U.S. can no longer provide Israel with military support.
"This law is very straightforward," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told NPR earlier this month. "It's clearly triggered by the facts on the ground in Gaza, where we now have kids who have literally died of starvation, and hundreds of thousands of people on the verge of starvation, with 4 out of the 5 hungriest people in the world today in Gaza."
McCollum and her colleagues wrote that Biden must also "reassess how our assistance is provided to Israel" if it moves forward with plans to launch a ground offensive in Rafah, "a move that would put the 1.5 million Palestinians displaced from other parts of Gaza in imminent danger and exacerbate the rate of disease, starvation, and death in the conflict."
"We echo our colleagues in the U.S. Senate in imploring you to enforce U.S. law with the Netanyahu government," wrote McCollum and her colleagues. "Mr. President, the situation in Gaza is dire. Immediate action from the United States is necessary to stop further loss of civilian life, and we urge you to use every tool at your disposal to end the suffering in this crisis and to keep this conflict from expanding."
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AOC Leads New Cease-Fire Push as Gaza Children Suffer
"We are profoundly shocked by the grave violations of children's rights in the context of armed conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory," a letter from 24 lawmakers to Biden said.
Nov 15, 2023
Twenty-four House members led by Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan, and Betty McCollum sent a letter to President Joe Biden Wednesday renewing calls for a cease-fire in Gaza.
The letter writers emphasized in particular how Israel's ongoing bombardment has impacted Gaza's 1 million children. The attack has killed 4,506 children and injured at least 7,695, while at least 1,755 are missing, most likely trapped beneath rubble. Israeli soldiers and settlers have also killed at least 51 children in the West Bank in the last 39 days.
"We are profoundly shocked by the grave violations of children's rights in the context of armed conflict in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory," the representatives wrote. "International norms require that all parties to an armed conflict protect children and prevent the commission of grave violations against them, including killing and maiming, attacks on schools and hospitals, recruitment and use of children, abduction of children, and denial of humanitarian access."
"We write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war in Gaza, particularly grave violations against children."
The letter adds to the number of lawmakers who have called for a cease-fire, raising the total to 31. The new names are Pocan (D-Wis.), Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), and Henry Johnson (D-Ga.)
They were joined by fellow Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), Cori Bush (Mo.), James McGovern (Mass.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Joaquin Castro (Texas), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Greg Casar (Texas), Jesús "Chuy" Garcia (Ill.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Barbara Lee (Calif.), André Carson (Ind.), Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Veronica Escobar (Texas), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.).
The new names mean that 5.8% of Congress now backs a cease-fire,The Intercept's Prem Thakker pointed out. The increase comes the same day as a Reuters/Ipsos poll finding that 68% of U.S. respondents believe Israel should negotiate a cease-fire.
The letter writers condemned Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, which killed at least 1,200 people, including 31 children. However, they also expressed "dire concerns" about Israel's response, which has killed more than 11,000 total in Gaza. In addition to death and injury from airstrikes, the attack and siege have also put Gaza's children in particular at risk from lack of food, water, and fuel. They noted that the bombardment had impacted 285 educational institutions, among them at least 29 U.N. schools.
"No child should ever have to face the overwhelming scale and horror of the violence that Palestinian children in Gaza are experiencing."
"We write to you to express deep concern about the intensifying war in Gaza, particularly grave violations against children, and our fear that without an immediate cessation of hostilities and the establishment of a robust bilateral cease-fire, this war will lead to a further loss of civilian life and risk dragging the United States into dangerous and unwise conflict with armed groups across the Middle East," the lawmakers said.
The representatives also looked to the future beyond an immediate cease-fire.
"Recognizing that there is no military solution that will end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we urge your administration to obtain clarity on the specific strategic objectives of a large-scale ground invasion, their achievability, what may come after Hamas, the risks to hostages and civilians in the region, the national security implications of a multi-front war in the Middle East, and the potential threats to American citizens in the region," they said.
The letter was also endorsed by more than 30 peace, human rights, and humanitarian groups including Amnesty International, IfNotNow, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and the American Friends Service Committee.
"No child should ever have to face the overwhelming scale and horror of the violence that Palestinian children in Gaza are experiencing," Beth Miller, the political director at Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said in a statement. "Representatives Ocasio-Cortez, McCollum, and Pocan are pushing forward a critical demand for Palestinian children's life to be valued and protected, and for the Biden administration to finally put an end to this nightmare by calling for a cease-fire now."
Elizabeth Rghebi, advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International USA, said the letter came at a "critical moment."
"More and more Palestinian civilians are losing their lives each day amid Israeli military operations and the unfolding of an unprecedented, man-made humanitarian catastrophe in the occupied Gaza Strip," Rghebi said. "An immediate cease-fire by all parties to the conflict is the only way to prevent further loss of life, to deliver humanitarian aid to those in desperate need, and to provide an opportunity to secure the safe release of hostages."
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Bipartisan House Amendment to Ban US Cluster Bomb Exports Fails
"The legacy of cluster bombs is misery, death, and expensive cleanup after generations of use," said Rep. Betty McCollum. "These weapons should be eliminated from our stockpiles."
Sep 27, 2023
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday rejected a bipartisan amendment to the 2024 military spending bill that would have prohibited the transfer of cluster munitions—which are banned under a treaty ratified by more than 100 nations but not the United States—to any country.
The House voted 160-269 on the amendment to next year's National Defense Authorization Act co-sponsored by Reps. Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fl.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). Seventy-five Democrats voted for the measure, while 137 voted "no"; 85 GOP lawmakers approved the amendment while 132 opposed it.
The vote took place less than a week after U.S. President Joe Biden said the United States would send more cluster munitions to Ukraine.
"Many of us have this idea of American exceptionalism, that America is set apart from the rest of the world. Well, that's certainly true when it comes to cluster munitions and not in the way that we want," Jacobs said on the House floor before Wednesday's vote.
"America is an outlier. We are one of the few countries that hasn't become party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and that is a grave mistake," she asserted, referring to a landmark 2008 treaty, to which 112 nations are parties.
Jacobs continued:
These weapons maim and kill indiscriminately. In 2021, the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor found that over 97% of casualties from cluster bomb remnants were civilians, and two-thirds of those were children. That's because these bomblets are small, colorful, and interesting shapes, so to children they look like toys. So when kids find these unexploded bomblets stuck in trees, or in the water, or simply on the ground and try to pick them up and play with them, they could lose a limb or their life in the blink of an eye.... These weapons are unpredictable, and the human cost is far too high to justify.
Since the end of the Vietnam War half a century ago, unexploded cluster munitions have killed approximately 20,000 civilians in Laos, where the U.S. dropped more bombs than all sides in World War II combined. The U.S. rained as many as 270 million cluster bombs on Laos, and less than 1% of the unexploded bomblets have been cleared since. They are still killing civilians today.
"These cluster bombs are indiscriminate," Gaetz said on the House floor Wednesday. "They've killed tens of thousands of people... and when this is all done, we'll be right back here on the floor appropriating money to de-mine the cluster bombs that we're now sending, which seems ludicrous to me."
"These cluster bombs are indiscriminate. They've killed tens of thousands of people."
Since Vietnam, the U.S. has used cluster bombs in wars including the 1999 NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia; the 1991 Desert Storm war in Iraq and Kuwait; and in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen during the so-called War on Terror. U.S. cluster munitions have been linked to birth defects, miscarriages, cancers, and other ailments.
Earlier this year, the U.S. began sending artillery-fired cluster munitions to Ukraine. Russian invaders and Ukrainian homeland defenders have both killed and wounded soldiers and civilians with cluster bombs during the war.
"The decision by the Biden administration to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine in my opinion was unnecessary and a sad mistake," McCollum told her House colleagues Wednesday. "The legacy of U.S. cluster munitions... undermines our moral authority and places the U.S. in a position that directly contradicts 23 of our NATO allies who have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions."
"The legacy of cluster bombs is misery, death, and expensive cleanup after generations of use," McCollum added. "These weapons should be eliminated from our stockpiles."
"Sending these weapons anywhere makes us complicit in unavoidable civilian harm and creates blowback that undermines our national security."
Last week, Biden informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the United States will provide Kyiv with long-range missiles with cluster munition warheads.
"Let's be clear," Jacobs added. "This isn't about one country, this is not about Ukraine. This is about protecting civilian lives and ensuring our national security all over the world. Because sending these weapons anywhere makes us complicit in unavoidable civilian harm and creates blowback that undermines our national security."
Multiple efforts by lawmakers to ban the export of U.S. cluster munitions have failed to advance. Earlier this year, the GOP-controlled House Rules Committee voted down a resolution proposed by Omar and Jacobs (D-Calif.), while backing another led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)—whose controversial sponsorship doomed the proposal.
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'A Terrible Mistake': Key Dems Oppose Biden's Move to Send Cluster Munitions to Ukraine
"The legacy of cluster bombs is misery, death, and expensive cleanup generations after their use," said Rep. Betty McCollum. "These weapons should be eliminated from our stockpiles, not dumped in Ukraine."
Jul 08, 2023
Several high-ranking House Democrats have joined human rights groups in expressing dismay over President Joe Biden's decision to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions—weapons that more than 120 countries have banned due to their devastating and long-lasting impacts on civilians.
Biden on Friday defended his move to send cluster bombs to Ukraine as part of a new $800 million weapons package, telling CNN it was "a very difficult decision" made because "Ukrainians are running out of ammunition" needed to stave off Russia's invasion.
Biden's comments came after top Democrats on the House Rules Committee and the panels that fund the Pentagon and State Department denounced the White House in rare statements broadcasting discord within the president's party.
"The decision by the Biden administration to transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine is unnecessary and a terrible mistake," said Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. "The legacy of cluster bombs is misery, death, and expensive cleanup generations after their use."
"These weapons should be eliminated from our stockpiles, not dumped in Ukraine," she added.
"The Biden administration will probably think twice when the pictures start coming back of children who have been harmed by American-made cluster munitions."
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Rules Committee, said that he continues "to strongly support helping Ukraine stand up to Russia's brutal war of aggression."
"But cluster munitions won't help," he stressed. "They are indiscriminate weapons that disperse hundreds of bomblets which can travel far beyond military targets and injure, maim, and kill civilians—often long after a conflict is over. I urge President Biden to listen to our NATO allies, such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Spain, who oppose sending cluster munitions to Ukraine for the same reasons."
One hundred twenty-three nations—including 23 of NATO's 31 members—have joined the United Nations Convention on Cluster Munitions, which prohibits all production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of the weapons. The treaty entered force nearly 13 years ago, but the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine have yet to sign it.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday published a report detailing the catastrophic effects that cluster bombs with exceptionally high bomblet failure rates used by both Russian and Ukrainian forces since the start of the war last year have already had and will have in the years ahead. Mary Wareham, the organization's acting arms director, said that "both sides should immediately stop using them and not try to get more."
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, said Thursday that she was "alarmed" Biden was even "considering sending cluster bombs to Ukraine." She pointed out that more than three dozen human rights and anti-war organizations had urged Biden in June to "remain steadfast" in opposing any transfer of the widely condemned weapons despite growing calls from congressional Republicans and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to send them to Kyiv.
U.S.-made cluster munitions have been used around the world for decades—including during Washington's wars on Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia—unleashing widespread destruction and littering landscapes with unexploded ordnance that still endangers unsuspecting civilians and hinders socioeconomic development generations later. HRW has documented how U.S.-made cluster bombs continue to cause grievous harm in various countries, including Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.
The subcommittee Lee previously chaired has long blocked the transfer of cluster munitions, which were last exported from the U.S. in 2015. Although the U.S. destroyed roughly 3.7 million cluster bombs from 2008 to 2017 and they are no longer produced by any U.S. companies, the Pentagon is estimated to still possess about 3.7 million "obsolete" cluster bombs containing over 300 million submunitions.
As Arms Control Association executive director Daryl Kimball explained Thursday: "In 2008, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates issued an order to phase out by 2018 cluster munitions with an unexploded ordnance rate of greater than 1%... [and] in 2011, the Obama administration affirmed this policy."
"The Pentagon has, unfortunately, dragged its feet and in 2017 the Trump administration announced the 2018 deadline for phasing out non-compliant cluster munitions would not be met," said Kimball. "No new deadline for meeting that goal was set by the Trump administration or the Biden administration."
In December, Lee and McGovern were among the 11 Democratic members of Congress who wrote in a letter to Biden that the U.S. "should be leading the global effort to rid the world of these weapons, not continuing to stockpile them."
Congress has passed legislation forbidding the export of cluster bombs that leave behind more than 1% of their submunitions as "duds." However, Biden is using a rarely invoked provision of the Foreign Assistance Act to bypass the restriction on so-called "national security" grounds, increasing the chances that Ukrainian neighborhoods and farms will be polluted with de facto landmines. Ukraine is already facing a multibillion-dollar cleanup effort, de-mining experts say.
According to The Washington Post:
The principal weapon under consideration, an M864 artillery shell first produced in 1987, is fired from the 155mm howitzers the United States and other Western countries have provided Ukraine. In its last publicly available estimate, more than 20 years ago, the Pentagon assessed that artillery shell to have a "dud" rate of 6%, meaning that at least four of each of the 72 submunitions each shell carries would remain unexploded across an area of approximately 22,500 square meters—roughly the size of 4½ football fields.
[...]
The Pentagon now says it has new assessments, based on testing as recent as 2020, with failure rates no higher than 2.35%. While that exceeds the limit of 1% mandated by Congress every year since 2017, officials are 'carefully selecting' munitions with the 2.35% dud rate or below for transfer to Ukraine, Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said Thursday.
"It's dismaying to see the long-established 1% unexploded ordnance standard for cluster munitions rolled back as this will result in more duds, which means an even greater threat to civilians, including de-miners," Wareham told the newspaper.
"The lack of transparency on how this number was reached is disappointing and seems unprecedented," she added.
As Politico reported:
Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon official and military adviser at PAX Protection of Civilians, a Dutch NGO, noted that the actual dud rates in the field are much higher than those recorded during tests "conducted under perfect and unrealistic conditions."
Comments from U.S. officials defending the decision do not allay the fears of many in the community, Garlasco said, expressing skepticism about the Pentagon's latest test data showing lower dud rates.
Arms control advocates who were on a call with administration officials on Friday said that despite claims the cluster munitions being sent would have lower dud rates, there were no details about the types and sources of the cluster munitions the U.S. plans to send.
Congressional Democrats' December letter urging Biden to join the majority of the world's countries in outlawing cluster bombs was also signed by Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
On Thursday, Jacobs and Omar introduced an amendment to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act recently approved by the House Armed Services Committee that would prevent the sale or transfer of cluster munitions.
Jacobs, Lee, McGovern, and Omar are all members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. But even some hawkish Democrats such as Rep. Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania are not hiding their disgust with Biden's about-face.
"There are some who will say that these weapons are necessary to level the battlefield given Russia's reported use of them," said Houlahan, co-chair of the bipartisan Unexploded Ordnance and Demining Caucus.
"I challenge the notion that we should employ the same tactics Russia is using, blurring the lines of moral high ground," she continued. "And I challenge all of us to remember that this war will end, and the broken pieces of Ukraine will need to be rebuilt."
Biden's move was praised by John Bolton, a notorious warmonger who has served in every GOP-led White House since the Reagan administration. It was also welcomed by some congressional Republicans, including far-right Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), whose only complaint was that "it took too long."
Sarah Yager, HRW's Washington director, told The Hill that those "legislators, policymakers, and the Biden administration will probably think twice when the pictures start coming back of children who have been harmed by American-made cluster munitions."
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After Latest Raid, Tlaib Demands US Stop Funding 'Violent Israeli Apartheid Regime'
"Israeli forces are now blocking ambulances from reaching the dozens of wounded Palestinians after at least eight people were killed in Jenin," the Michigan Democrat said Monday.
Jul 03, 2023
In the wake of another deadly raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on Monday led renewed calls for Congress to cut off the nearly $4 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel's apartheid government.
Israeli forces killed at least eight Palestinians and wounded dozens of others in the early morning attack on Jenin that included bombardment by unmanned aerial drones. Israeli and international media described the airstrikes as the fiercest to hit the West Bank in nearly two decades.
Retweeting an Al Jazeera English video of an Israeli bulldozer destroying a street in Jenin, Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the first Palestinian-American woman elected to the House—asserted that "Congress must stop funding this violent Israeli apartheid regime."
The U.S.-based Jewish Voice for Peace issued a similar call.
"Last night," the group said Monday, "the Israeli military unleashed a full-scale assault on Jenin, surrounding the Palestinian city, preventing people from leaving and launching airstrikes. The state-sanctioned violence Palestinians endure daily must end. End U.S. military funding to Israel now."
The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights called Monday's attack a "horrific massacre" that was "directly funded with $3.8+ billion/year of our U.S. tax dollars."
Lamenting that "the Israeli government is completely out of control because it does not expect to face any consequences from the Biden administration," Council on American Islamic Relations national executive director Nihad Awad said that "this must change."
The Institute for Middle East Understanding, an advocacy group headquartered in Tustin, California, tweeted: "Israel has no right to invade Palestinian cities, and must be held accountable for its war crimes."
"The U.S. sends Israel nearly $4 billion a year in military funding," the group added. "Enough is enough."
The peace group CodePink reshared a petition urging President Joe Biden and Congress to "stop funding the ethnic cleansing of Palestine."
Monday's raid came less than two weeks after Palestinian militants killed four Israelis near Eli, an illegal Jewish-only settler colony built partly on land stolen from residents of the Palestinian village of Qaryut. In response to the killings, a mob of Israeli settlers attacked the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, killing one Palestinian and burning many homes, businesses, and vehicles.
Progressive members of Congress including Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) condemned U.S. military aid to Israel following what the two lawmakers called the "pogrom" in Turmus Ayya.
In May, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and co-sponsors reintroduced legislation that would prohibit Israel from using U.S. taxpayer funds to detain or abuse Palestinian children in the West Bank.
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US Unquestioning Support for Israeli Abuses Is Dwindling, Albeit Slowly
While it is more in rhetoric than in action for now, this progress is undoubtedly a good thing when it comes to hopes for a just peace for Palestinians.
May 26, 2023
Though the United States remains a strong supporter of Israel, there are some indications that the supposed “unbreakable bond” with Tel Aviv is faltering, though more in language than in deeds.
Following the provocative “Flag March” on May 18, which is carried out annually by Israeli Jewish extremists in the Occupied Palestinian city of East Jerusalem, the U.S. joined other countries around the world in condemning the racism displayed at the event.
The language used by the U.S. State Department was firm, but also guarded. Spokesman Matthew Miller did not condemn the racist, provocative march—which involved leading Israeli officials—but the language used by the large crowds, most of whom are strong supporters of the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“After a decade in which Democrats have shown increasing affinity toward the Palestinians, their sympathies... now lie more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, 49% versus 38%.”
“The United States unequivocally opposes racist language of any form,” Miller tweeted. “We condemn the hateful chants such as ‘Death to Arabs’ during today’s marches in Jerusalem.”
Carefully articulated not to appear as a condemnation of Israel itself, the U.S. position is still more “balanced” than previous positions, where Palestinians were often the ones associated with the U.S. use of words such as “condemnation,” “incitement,” and the like.
On the other hand, during the Israeli bloody five-day war on Gaza, starting on May 9, Washington had resorted to the same old script, that of Israel having the “right to defend itself,” thus entirely misrepresenting the events which led to the war in the first place.
This U.S. position on Israel’s war on Gaza suggests that Netanyahu is the “defender” of Israel against supposed Palestinian violence and “terrorism.” But this purported champion of Israeli rights is yet to be invited to the White House five months after he returned to power at the helm of Israel’s most right-wing government in history.
Some want to believe that the decision by the Joe Biden administration to distance itself from Netanyahu was entirely altruistic. But that cannot be the case, as the U.S. continues to back Israel militarily, financially, politically, and in every other way.
The answer lies in Netanyahu’s major miscalculations of the past, when he crossed a dangerous line, by turning against the Democratic Party and allying his country entirely with Republicans. His tactics paid dividends during the term of Republican President Donald Trump, but backfired when Trump left the White House.
Biden is unquestionably pro-Israel. Per his own repeated remarks, his support for Israel is not only political but ideological as well. “I am a Zionist. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” he has repeated, and proudly so, on several occasions.
But the U.S. President is also anti-Netanyahu, a dislike that even preceded the Trump-Netanyahu love affair. It mostly dates back to Barack Obama’s two terms in office, when Biden was the vice president.
Netanyahu’s political shenanigans and relentless attacks on the Obama administration at the time taught Biden that Netanyahu simply cannot be trusted.
Yet, Biden, with historically low ratings among ordinary Americans, cannot possibly, on his own, challenge Netanyahu and Israel’s stronghold on Washington through its influential lobby.
Something else is at work, namely, the fact that the Democratic Party as a whole had shifted allegiances, from Israel to Palestine.
This assertion would have been unthinkable in the past, but the change is real, confirmed time and again by credible polling companies. The latest was in March.
“After a decade in which Democrats have shown increasing affinity toward the Palestinians, their sympathies... now lie more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, 49% versus 38%,” the Gallup poll concluded.
The fact that such growing “affinity” with Palestine has been taking place for at least a decade suggests that the position of the Democrats was a generational one, not an outcome of a single event.
Indeed, numerous organizations and countless individuals are working on a daily basis to create a link between ”affinity” and policy.
Buoyed by the growing sympathies for Palestine, long-time advocate of Palestinians’ rights in the U.S. Congress Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) reintroduced, on May 5, the Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act.
Co-sponsored by 16 other members of Congress, the legislation demands that Israel must be prohibited from using “U.S. taxpayer dollars in the Occupied West Bank for the military detention, abuse, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children.”
Two years earlier, The Intercept had reported that McCollum and her supporters were pushing towards barring U.S. aid to Israel from “subsidizing a wider array of Israeli occupation tactics.”
Alex Kane wrote, this is “an indication of just how far the debate over the U.S. aid to Israel has come in the past six years,” a reference to 2015, when McCollum introduced the first legislation on the matter.
Since then, things have moved forward at an even more accelerated speed. The effort to hold Israel accountable has now reached the New York state assembly.
On May 16, the New York Post reported that legislation was introduced by several Democratic lawmakers aimed at blocking registered U.S. charities from funneling money to fund illegal Israeli Jewish settlements.
The legislation, Not on Our Dime!: Ending New York Funding of Israeli Settler Violence Act, dares to challenge Israel on multiple fronts: the traditional power of the pro-Israel lobby, questioning U.S. funding of Israel, and confronting the channeling of funds to illegal settlements in the name of charity work.
Several reasons compel us to believe that the shift in U.S. policy on Palestine and Israel, though slow, nuanced and, at times, symbolic, will likely continue.
One is the fact that Israel is turning towards far-right nationalism, which is increasingly difficult to defend by U.S. liberal government and media.
Two, the steadfastness of Palestinians and their ability to overcome mainstream media restrictions and censorship that had prevented them from having any fair representation.
And, finally, the dedication of numerous civil society organizations and the widening network of support for Palestinians throughout the U.S., which allowed courageous lawmakers to push for substantive change in policy.
Time will tell what direction Washington will take in the future. But, considering the current evidence, support for Israel is dwindling at rates that are unprecedented.
For those advocating a just peace in Palestine, this is a good thing.
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