Inside the US State Department’s weapons pipeline to Israel

This story was originally published by ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom..

Reporting highlights

• More bombs: Ambassador Jack Lew urged Washington to give thousands more bombs to the Israelis because they have a “decades-long proven track record” of avoiding killing civilians.
• A thank-you: After State Department officials spent months working through weekends and after hours on arms sales, the Israelis sent cases of wine to them just before Christmas.
• A lobbying push: Defense contractors and lobbyists have also helped push along valuable sales by leaning on State Department officials and lawmakers whenever there’s a holdup.

In late January, as the death toll in Gaza climbed to 25,000 and droves of Palestinians fled their razed cities in search of safety, Israel’s military asked for 3,000 more bombs from the American government. US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, along with other top diplomats in the Jerusalem embassy, sent a cable to Washington urging State Department leaders to approve the sale, saying there was no potential the Israel Defense Forces would misuse the weapons.

The cable did not mention the Biden administration’s public concerns over the growing civilian casualties, nor did it address well-documented reports that Israel had dropped 2,000-pound bombs on crowded areas of Gaza weeks earlier, collapsing apartment buildings and killing hundreds of Palestinians, many of whom were children. Lew was aware of the issues. Officials say his own staff had repeatedly highlighted attacks where large numbers of civilians died. Homes of the embassy’s own Palestinian employees had been targeted by Israeli airstrikes.

Still, Lew and his senior leadership argued that Israel could be trusted with this