• chaogomu@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Fun fact, there’s a 2008 law that specifically forces the president to give Israel all the best military hardware.

    It was passed by W on his way out the door, and due to the Democratic party being compromised as hell, there’s never been enough votes to get rid of it, and any time the president might want to hold things back, they get sued under that law.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Biden and Obama both could have used the leahy law on day one. We have evidence going that far back that Israel systematically commits war crimes, including occupying Palestine in an illegal manner. To be clear there is a way they could have done it legally. But things including extending their own, civilian, legal system into the occupied areas preclude it being legal.

    • LePoisson@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      PDF warning but anyone wanting to peep the law - it’s here.

      https://www.congress.gov/112/statute/STATUTE-126/STATUTE-126-Pg1146.pdf

      There’s actually very explicit language that Congress wrote into the law basically ensuring the president, or the executive at large, has to support Israel militarily.

      So there isn’t really an easy way for a president to unilaterally untangle us from our military alliance with Israel even if they want to. It will take a literal act of Congress to change the course of the State Dept when it comes to Israel as a lot of what is wrong is prescribed by law as necessary.