The assurances were sent in response to a national security memorandum issued by President Biden in early February. That notice reiterated existing standards that countries receiving U.S. weapons must adhere to and set out a timeline for responses with “credible and reliable” assurances those standards are being met. The memo also gives the secretaries of State and Defense 45 days within which to assess those assurances and recommend to the president if remedial action — including possible suspension of arms supplies — should be taken.
But the new reporting and assessment requirements have led to widespread confusion within and outside the administration. Some international aid organizations, and some lawmakers, have interpreted them to mean that Sunday’s deadline for receiving the assurances is also the deadline for a presidential decision on withholding arms from Israel and six other countries deemed to be currently involved in armed conflict.
The State Department is working to assess by Sunday whether Israel’s assurances are “credible and reliable,” said a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the delicate matter. At Friday’s White House briefing, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has already “determined that the information [Israel] provided was credible and reliable.”
Both of those assertions, several other U.S. officials said, are inaccurate. While Sunday is the assurance deadline — and any concerns could be reported to and acted upon by the president at any time — the administration does not expect to make a complete assessment of credibility until the State Department is due, under the terms of the memo, to report its findings to Congress on May 8, the officials said.
Early next week, the State Department plans to announce only that the applicable countries have met the deadline to submit their responses, signed by credible senior officials of those countries. In Israel’s case, that came in a letter from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Asked about his remarks, Kirby said in an email that he “misspoke earlier today when speaking to the State Department process regarding assurances from Israel about the security assistance we provide. Secretary Blinken has not made a determination yet about those assurances. I regret the error.”
But attempts at clarification of the timeline have not stopped critics and those concerned about the administration’s Israel policy from moving to push Biden to take action.
The administration has maintained an increasingly difficult balance between its commitment to Israel’s right to self-defense and elimination of Hamas, and its dismay over the military offensive in Gaza, where local authorities put the death toll from Israeli air and ground attacks at more than 32,000.
The president and his senior aides became especially angered after a humanitarian aid convoy delivery in northern Gaza on Feb. 29 turned deadly as Israel Defense Forces opened fire on starving civilians who stampeded the delivery trucks. U.S. officials, who have been increasingly public in their demands of Israel, saw the incident as the epitome of the Netanyahu government’s failure to facilitate more aid into Gaza.
Biden aides have been especially distressed by the warnings of an imminent famine there and reports of…
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