How do US weapons to Israel harm Palestinians ?

The United States provides more taxpayer-funded weapons to Israel than any other country in the world. In fact, in most years, the US gives more weapons to Israel than all other countries in the world combined. Since World War II, Israel also has been the largest cumulative recipient of US funding. Giving these weapons to Israel, especially on such a large scale, makes the US directly complicit in Israel’s daily and systematic violation of Palestinians’ human rights.
  • Israel uses US weapons, including fighter jets and helicopter gunships, in its frequent attacks against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip. Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in these attacks since 2009, and has destroyed thousands of homes and other civilian infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, mosques, and businesses.
  • Israel uses US-made Caterpillar bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes and build Israeli-only settlements on stolen Palestinian land. Not only are US weapons critical in Israel’s theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; they are also frequently used by Israel to injure and kill Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

BY NUMBERS:

  • Since 2000, Israel has killed over 5,000 Palestinians who took no part in hostilities, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. Israel killed many of these Palestinians with US weapons.
  • In the 2022 budget request, Israel received 53% of total Foreign Military Financing (the technical budgetary term for taxpayer-funded weapons), meaning that Israel got more US weapons than all other countries in the world combined through the regular budget.
  • Instead of giving Israel $3.8 billion of weapons each year to commit human rights abuses against Palestinians, the US could instead fund 47,000 school teachers, or fund 51,000 clean energy jobs, or provide 653,000 students with Pell grants, or provide healthcare to 1.6 million uninsured children, or provide food assistance to 2.5 million people.