Israeli police freeze U.S. arms deal for fear of Netanyahu government arming settler extremists
Axios Two US officials told Axios that the Biden administration has again Frozen licenses for the sale of more than 20,000 US-made rifles to Israel due to fears of attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank.
The decision refers to another review by the State Department that the Biden administration remains concerned that the Israeli government is not doing enough to reduce violence by extremist settlers.
In the first week of the war, Israel ordered rifles for civilian first response teams in Israeli villages near the borders with Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. These teams of local residents receive weapons and training from the Israeli police in order to be first responders in the event of a terrorist attack.
The Israeli request was handled with caution by the Biden administration due to concerns that Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultra-Orthodox minister of national security who oversees the police, would distribute guns to extremist settlers in the West Bank, according to U.S. officials.
The Biden administration and Congress approved export licenses to American defense companies only after making sure that the weapons would not go to civilian teams in Jewish settlements.
Several weeks after the approval of the deal, US officials said that the State Department decided to go slowly through the process and put the licenses under new review.
US officials said the reason for the new review was a feeling in the Biden administration that the Israeli government had not done enough to address settler violence and a claim that the United States was "inflating the issue".
The Biden administration was disturbed by a report in the Israeli press about a secret document written by the commander of the IDF Central Command that claimed that Ben-Gvir gave an order to the police not to arrest violent settlers in the West Bank.
A US official said that we need more assurances from Israel about the steps it will take to reduce violent settler attacks and ensure that no new US weapons reach settlers in the West Bank.
The State Department announced last week that it had imposed sanctions on a few dozen Israeli settlers believed to be involved in attacks against Palestinians, banning them from traveling to the United States.
This was the first time the United States had imposed sanctions on extremist settlers since the Clinton administration.
