Although there have been earlier published rumors, the NYT just published this above the fold:
Biden Puts Arms Shipment to Israel on Hold Amid Dispute Over Rafah Attack
The United States withheld 3,500 bombs last week out of concern that they might be used in a major assault against the southern Gaza city, officials said.
by Peter Baker
President Biden paused an arms shipment to Israel last week to prevent the U.S.-made weapons from being used in a long-threatened assault on the city Rafah, administration officials said on Tuesday night, a sign of the growing rift between Washington and Jerusalem over the conduct of the war.
The president withheld 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs that he feared could be dropped on Rafah, where more than one million Gazans have taken refuge, the officials said. The administration is reviewing whether to hold back future transfers, including guidance kits that convert so-called dumb bombs into precision-guided munitions.
The decision to delay the delivery of the 3,500 bombs was the first time since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack that Mr. Biden has used his power to curtail arms as an instrument to influence Israel’s approach to the war that followed. A number of Mr. Biden’s Democratic allies in Congress have for weeks urged him to limit or halt arms shipments to Israel, something he had refused to do until now because of his strong support for the effort to destroy Hamas.
Israeli officials disclosed the weapons pause to Axios earlier this week, but U.S. officials refused to confirm it either at briefings or privately until Tuesday night. The fact that they finally did so was a clear indication of how much frustration is growing among administration officials that their Israeli counterparts are not heeding U.S. warnings against a major operation in Rafah that could lead to extensive civilian casualties. Confirmation of the arms pause came just hours after Israel sent tanks into the city in southern Gaza….
Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen in the Senate, and then thirty-seven Democrats in the House (including the Squad and also Nancy Pelosi) in a letter, urged President Biden to halt offensive weapons shipments to Israel unless Netanyahu reverses his murderous course.
Starting to evict a million people into a famine during cease fire negotiations seems to be the last straw, at long last.
The reason this move is a BFD goes far beyond preventing a bloodbath in Rafah right now. Netanyahu is highly unpopular in Israel, almost totally isolated in the world, and dependent on arms and economic assistance from the US. Biden has resisted using the full leverage this dependence gives him, due to his lifelong identification with Israel as a refuge from antisemitism and an island of democracy in a hostile, authoritarian sea.
But Netanyahu has gotten away with so many provocations, from his flagrant support of settler brutality in the West Bank, to his open disrespect for Obama and for Biden himself, to his attempt to overturn the rule of law in Israel, to his coalition with the open racists and eliminationists Smotrich and Ben Gvir, to in Biden’s words “disproportionate and indiscriminate” (ie war crimes) overreaction to the monstrous Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, to the killing of some 200 aid workers and over 100 journalists in Gaza, to the famine that has begun, that Biden is finally starting to use the leverage he has.
Both the far right coalition in Israel, and the reactionary fundamentalist Hamas regime in Gaza, need to be replaced ASAP. Both are publicly pledged to rule all the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. About 7 million Israeli Jews and 7 million Palestinian Arabs live in that land -- neither population would ever accept rule by the other, and the world would never accept ethnic cleansing of either. So the alternative to a just peace both peoples can live with is endless war, possibly engulfing the entire region.
But Biden could use the lever of withholding offensive weapons, deployed at scale, not only to impose a temporary ceasefire and prisoner exchange, but to humiliate and further isolate Netanyahu to the point at which his far right government falls.
UPDATE May 8: Likewise, Biden should work with Arab states, especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia, to similarly defund and humiliate Hamas. Restoring full US funding of UNRWA, the only entity with the capacity to distribute enough food in Gaza to end the famine in progress, is also imperative, if necessary by declaring a national security emergency.
Considering the danger of continuing the vendetta indefinitely not just to the people of Palestine and Israel, but also the risk of a regional war that would threaten world peace and US security, Biden has an opportunity and the responsibility to use ALL his leverage to end the decades of hot and cold war, at long last. The full tool kit also includes withholding economic aid to Israel dollar-for-dollar equal to what the Israeli government spends subsidizing the West Bank settlers.
The principles of a just peace were laid out in the in the 2002 Arab Peace Plan and the detailed, comprehensive Geneva Accord reached by former official Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, which largely overlap. One key point is to divide the land mainly along the internationally recognized 1949-1966 borders, with adjustments to minimize population transfers, exchanging land equal in area and quality. Those principles can be the basis (with maps updated as necessary) for a sustainable peace.
UPDATE May 9: Importantly, the most popular Palestinian leader, in both the West Bank and Gaza, is Marwan Barghouti, who led the first and second intifadas. He has been imprisoned by Israel on murder charges since 2002, and been called “Palestine’s Nelson Mandela”. He had supported the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, turned to insurrection when that failed, but now favors a just peace. Barghouti’s release is reportedly on the table in the ceasefire and prisoner exchange negotiations — that is the second key to ending the long war, along with Biden using all his leverage on Israel.
The Arab League and the EU have all expressed support for a just peace that respects the right of both peoples to self-determination and a fair division of the territory. If there is too much distrust between the parties to make peace themselves, the Security Council preferably or else a coalition of the willing if necessary could impose a just, secure, and enduring peace, for both Israel and a free Palestine, side by side.
Enough is enough.