State Dept. Drops Report Critical of Israel's Use of US Weapons, but It's Even Worse News for the Left

By Becca Lower | 7:05 PM on May 10, 2024

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As the federal government sometimes likes to do late on a Friday, there was again a news dump today, and it related to how our ally Israel is conducting the war against Hamas with U.S. weapons. The report's release comes on a busy day full of Israel news, as RedState reported:

Israel Enters Rafah As Negotiations With Hamas Breakdown and Bibi Tells Biden Where to Put It

Here's how the New York Times reported things:

The Biden administration has concluded it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has violated international law, but has not found specific instances that would justify the withholding of military aid, the State Department told Congress on Friday.
In the administration’s most detailed assessment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the State Department said in a written report to Congress that Israel “has the knowledge, experience and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations.”
But it added that “the results on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions” as to whether the Israel Defense Forces are using them sufficiently.
The report also noted that “Israel has not shared complete information to verify” whether U.S. weapons have been used in specific incidents alleged to have involved human rights law violations.

The NYT later wrote that the [report's] conclusions are unrelated to Mr. Biden’s recent decision to delay the delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs and his review of other weapons shipments."

Read: Biden Places a Hold on Shipments of Arms and Ammunition to Israel

But there already appears to be discontent among anti-Israel factions on the Left over the report's findings, who hoped to make political hay with it:

Critics of Mr. Biden’s continuation of most military support to Israel had hoped that he would use the report as a catalyst for further restricting arms deliveries to the country.

This is a developing story, and RedState will bring you further updates as they become available.