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13 March 2024

Why America Isn’t Using Its Leverage with Israel

Isaac Chotiner

On Sunday, Vice-President Kamala Harris said that the Israeli government “must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid [into Gaza]. No excuses.” This marked perhaps the Biden Administration’s most forceful push to encourage Israel to allow more food and medicine into the territory, where more than thirty thousand people have been killed since the war that began after Hamas killed some twelve hundred Israelis on October 7th. The Biden Administration also announced that it had begun airdrops of food aid to the people of Gaza, but the humanitarian crisis there continues to worsen. A World Health Organization team in Gaza recently found “severe levels of malnutrition, children dying of starvation, serious shortages of fuel, food and medical supplies, hospital buildings destroyed.”

I recently spoke by phone with Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat. In January, Van Hollen visited the Rafah border crossing and raised alarms about the inspection process, as well as what he said was obstruction by the Israeli government. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the different ways that the Israeli government is preventing adequate aid from reaching civilians, whether the Biden Administration’s policy toward Israel is in the process of changing, and the scale of the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Where are we right now in terms of getting aid to the people in Gaza? What is preventing that aid from reaching them in sufficient levels?

Well, we’re nowhere near where we need to be. We now have hundreds of thousands of people on the verge of starvation. We also passed the grisly marker where at least fifteen children have died of starvation, so the situation has gone from bad to worse. The primary cause has been the continued restrictions on assistance by the Netanyahu government. It’s pretty startling that we have got to the point where the United States has to provide airdrops into Gaza as a measure to try to feed some people. I support it totally, but it’s obviously inadequate to meet the needs, as the President himself has indicated.

Why do you believe the Netanyahu government is responsible for the lack of aid reaching civilians in Gaza?

Well, I think it’s clear from following the situation that the Netanyahu government could allow many more trucks to cross into Gaza, both through Kerem Shalom and through Rafah. If you look at any graph over time of the number of trucks going through, you can see big drops to under a hundred trucks as recently as February, and at the same time, you have people like [Minister of Finance] Bezalel Smotrich holding up flour at the Port of Ashdod for at least five weeks, despite the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu promised President Biden that that flour would go to hungry, starving people. That’s just one example. You also have [Minister of National Security] Itamar Ben-Gvir indicating that he would not allow police to clear protesters who were blocking trucks at the Kerem Shalom crossing.

These are Israeli protesters intentionally trying to block aid trucks from crossing into Gaza, correct?

Right. There’s also the issue of continued arbitrary denial of things like maternity kits from being able to cross into Gaza on the claim that somehow a maternity kit is a dual-use item, and that also holds true with other items like water purifiers and things that clearly are not dual use. [Dual-use items are items which could potentially be used for military purposes, aside from their intended purposes.] When there’s one of those items on the truck, the whole truck has to be turned around and go back to the start, which is now taking up to several weeks in some cases.

You mentioned that you could fill us in more about the issue with Smotrich. What was it you were going to say?

So, this was a shipment of flour from Turkey that was at the port of Ashdod, and had enough flour to feed hundreds of thousands of people for weeks. Smotrich intervened and refused to allow the flour to be transferred because he didn’t want the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (unrwa) to be able to distribute it, even though we know that unrwa has been the primary distribution system for aid in Gaza. I should point out that Ambassador David Satterfield, our humanitarian envoy, has said repeatedly that he has received zero evidence from the Netanyahu government that U.N.-distributed aid has been diverted to Hamas. But Smotrich was holding this up, claiming that he didn’t want it to go through unrwa, and so the flour has to be transferred to the World Food Program, but before it could be released to the World Food Program, unrwa had to pay delay charges for the time that it was sitting in the port of Ashdod because Smotrich had not allowed it to be delivered, and when unrwa went to make that payment, it was rejected by the Israeli bank that refused to accept a payment from unrwa.

The Israelis have said that there were some members of unrwa who participated in the October 7th attacks. But it’s also the main aid agency for Palestinians who are facing these desperate conditions, correct?

Well, that’s right. unrwa in Gaza is an organization of thirteen thousand people that provides schooling to Palestinians. It provides health care to Palestinians. The government of Israel says that up to fourteen members of unrwa out of the thirteen thousand participated in the awful October 7th attacks. The U.N. has its independent investigative arm reviewing that, and other countries who have looked at it have determined that Palestinians, innocent Palestinian civilians, should not be punished by denying aid through unrwa. I will say, having reviewed the classified report from the Biden Administration, my view is that, of course, anybody engaged in October 7th needs to be held totally accountable, but that innocent Palestinians in Gaza should not be denied food that can be distributed through unrwa.

What is the perspective of the Administration, which paused new funding for unrwa in the meantime?

Right, so the Administration has not said that unrwa should not continue to deliver aid in Gaza. The Administration has said that it was going to pause new funding for unrwa in Gaza until the U.N. completed its reports, but that is a separate issue than allowing unrwa to continue to distribute aid to starving people in Gaza.

Am I correct that there is a law on the books in America which says that “funds appropriated or otherwise made available for United States assistance may not be made available for any country whose government prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance?”

You cited that exactly right, and the President, just within the last couple of days, said, and I’m quoting, “We’re going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need. No excuses, because the truth is aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough now. It’s nowhere nearly enough.” I will say that I’ve been flabbergasted that the Administration has not invoked and implemented the law you just cited, which is called the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act.

When you quoted the President as saying he would “insist” on this, what do you think that means?

I think the President is saying that he’s going to demand that more routes be open and more desperately needed assistance can get in, but it is important that the Administration use the tools that are at its disposal to do that, and one of those tools is invoking and implementing the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act.

If that were invoked, what would follow?

So, what would follow from that is that, until the Netanyahu government allowed needed assistance to get to starving people in Gaza, the United States would suspend its military assistance. I should say that that does not cover the provision of defensive systems like Iron Dome, but it would mean a suspension of delivering bombs that could be used in Gaza.

Do you have any sense that the Administration would even consider this?

Well, I just had a briefing with them, and they have clearly not done it to date. We said to them, “Look, the honest approach to this, if you don’t want to implement it, is to invoke the waiver provision.” As you can see from that law, [the waiver provision] allows the President to decide not to invoke it if the President notifies Congress that there are national-security reasons for doing it. I can understand why the President wouldn’t want to invoke the waiver, but that would be the direct approach. My view is that the Administration should implement the law and use the leverage it has from this law to get crossings open and end the arbitrary systems of denying aid into Gaza.

We’ve heard from the Administration, at least rhetorically, somewhat of a different posture in the past several days. You quoted President Biden. Vice-President Harris made a forceful speech. Samantha Power, another Administration official, made a rather forceful remark about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. Do you see this as the beginning of any substantive change, or more of a rhetorical change?

I’ve been pressing the Administration to make more of a substantive change. I welcome the truthful remarks being made by the President, the Vice-President, and the U.S.A.I.D. administrator. Now the question all along has been whether or not the Biden Administration is prepared to use the leverage it has in order to turn words into actions, and the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act is tailor-made for exactly that purpose. Now, I will say, I very much welcomed the President’s issuing of National Security Memorandum 20.

That was done after nineteen of us introduced an amendment to the National Security Act—the legislation for assistance to Ukraine, Israel, and humanitarian assistance for Gaza—and we made it clear that we would insist on a vote on the Senate floor on our amendment. The Administration decided to work with us to implement our amendment through the issuance of a national-security memorandum. If you look at the language in that document with respect to humanitarian assistance, it is, in my view, broader than the current language in the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act that you just mentioned.

It requires any country that receives security assistance to promise in writing that they will use that equipment in accordance with international law. Second, it requires every recipient country to commit in writing that they will facilitate and not arbitrarily impede or restrict the delivery of humanitarian assistance into a conflict zone where they are using U.S. weapons. There’s also an enforcement provision that says that, where the Secretary of State determines that a country is violating those promises, they will bring that to the attention of the President, who shall take a number of measures up to and including terminating security assistance. Finally, and very importantly, there is a reporting requirement to the Congress. The report will require the Administration to let us know in writing the extent to which recipient countries are complying with the promises that they made, but also, very importantly, whether or not recipient countries are using military assistance not just in compliance with international law and the law of war but whether they are abiding by best practices to prevent and mitigate civilian harm. That is also a very key part of the reporting requirement, and I should finally add that a national-security memorandum issued by the President has the full effect of law.

Importantly, it also applies not just to U.S.-provided assistance but to all U.S.-supported humanitarian assistance.

So, this would be not just explicitly American aid at one of the border crossings but America trying to assist with U.N. aid, or aid from Turkey, and so on?

Exactly.

You’ve had a lot of conversations with people in the Administration about this. Is there a difference of opinion when you talk to people high up in the Administration about what’s actually going on, or about how to deal with it? Is there disagreement about, say, why aid is failing to reach Gaza? Are people in the Administration telling you, “Oh, no, in fact, the Israelis want to get aid in,” or is there an open acknowledgment that the Israelis are intentionally denying humanitarian aid to Gaza?

In all my discussions, Administration officials have recognized that the Netanyahu government has put up unacceptable barriers to the delivery of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, and so the question is not one of fact but what to do about it.

Have you heard from anyone in the Administration any reason that the Netanyahu government would continue to do this other than for some type of collective punishment? I don’t know what other phrase to use.

Well, all I know are what the facts are. I know that Smotrich was holding up this flour. I know that, if you look at a graph over time, you will see a big drop in the number of trucks that are coming across, through both Kerem Shalom and through Rafah, and I also know that, despite repeated requests from the Biden Administration to open up other crossings that would allow assistance into the north where starvation is even more acute, that they’ve been ignored to date.

The idea that we’re giving massive amounts in aid to a country that is refusing our request to allow humanitarian assistance through so we have to airdrop food is embarrassing. I was wondering if you thought there was some sense of that embarrassment, and that that was what is responsible for the change in tone.

I do think that the Administration recognizes how bad it looks to repeatedly request the Netanyahu government take action and to repeatedly be ignored, while at the same time the Administration has been providing a substantial amount of military aid that’s being used in Gaza. I think the Administration recognizes the contradictions, but has not yet resolved those contradictions. One way to resolve the contradictions would be to make better use of the leverage that the United States has, both through current law, like the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act, and prospectively, really applying the terms of National Security Memorandum 20.

I know that some important players within the Administration share my view. As you know, for the first time, National Security Memorandum 20 is going to require all recipient countries, including the Netanyahu government, to provide written promises that they will use those weapons in compliance with international law, and facilitate and not impede the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Of course, that will still require the political will to enforce it, and I can only hope that the Biden Administration will do so.

Some of your Democratic colleagues disagree with you about this, and about the need to use more leverage with the Israeli government. What are they saying to you?

I really haven’t heard a good response to the question of why we should not apply existing U.S. law, which now includes National Security Memorandum 20, to insure that U.S. military assistance is used in accordance with our values. I think that the Administration decided to adopt the framework of our amendment and to incorporate it in the National Security Memorandum 20 was both because they did not want a big argument on the floor of the Senate, and also because they recognize the merits of the approach. 

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