Biden attaches human rights conditions to aid
WASHINGTON — A new directive by President Joe Biden appeared to ease a split among Democrats over his military support for Israel’s war in Gaza, with lawmakers on Friday praising the order authorizing a swift cutoff of military aid to countries that violate international protections of civilians.
For Biden, the commitment to conditioning US military aid for Israel and other allies and strategic partners will help him shore up support among center-left Senate Democrats for his proposed $95 billion supplemental assistance package, which is aimed primarily at military aid for Ukraine in its war with Russia and for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza.
Democratic senators on Friday called Biden’s directive — meant to bring breadth, oversight, deadlines and teeth to efforts to ensure foreign governments don’t use US military aid against civilians — historic.
“This is a sea-change in terms of how you approach US military aid and its impact on civilians,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said. She spoke at a Capitol news conference with other Democrats who’d negotiated with the White House for two months on the matter, in an effort led by Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen.
Human rights advocates said the challenge for the new directive would be the same faced by all previous efforts to withhold US weapons and funding from human rights abusers — whether administrations will actually enforce the human rights conditions against strategically important allies and partners.
“The issue was never knowledge” of US military aid being used in violation of international law “so much as enforcement,” said Kenneth Roth, a former head of Human Rights Watch and a visiting professor at Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
The new order comes in what’s officially known as a presidential memorandum. Those have the force of law, although succeeding presidents can overturn them.
Biden’s order has immediate effect. It gives Secretary of State Antony Blinken 45 days to obtain “credible and reliable written assurances” from foreign recipients of US military aid that are in active conflicts, which includes Israel and Ukraine, that they are using US military assistance in compliance with international humanitarian law and human rights law and other standards.
Foreign governments that fail to provide those assurances on time would have their military aid paused.