There is no end in sight to Palestinians’ miseries, at least in the near future. Despite immense criticism from the international community, including the United Nations and European Union, Israel continues its gross human rights violations in Gaza. So far, around 35,000 Palestinians, including over 10,000 children, have died as a result of massive bombing and ground assault by Israel’s defense forces. The Palestinians as well as the international community remain helpless in the face of Israel’s genocidal mission in Gaza.
The horrors in Gaza lead us to some crucial questions: Who benefits from Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, and why the so-called global champion of human rights vetoed the UNSC resolution demanding a ceasefire in war-torn Gaza? The answer is evident and straightforward – the closest beneficiary is the US-based Military-Industrial Complex (MIC), a term coined by US President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961. In his farewell address, President Eisenhower warned, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” As they say, war is a profitable business, the US-based MIC is the biggest beneficiary of Israel’s war on Gaza.
Shortly after Israel declared war on Gaza on 7 October 2023 in retaliation to the Hamas-led attack, the US government started transferring massive amounts of deadly weapons, including more than 15,000 bombs and 50,000 artillery shells within the first month. According to a recent classified briefing to the congress members, the US has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales items to Israel since 7 October, which included thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms, and other lethal aid.
Interestingly, according to the Washington Post, only two approved foreign military sales to Israel are publicly known: $106 million worth of tank ammunition and $147.5 million of components needed to make 155 mm shells. The sale of these weapons immediately triggered public debate because the Biden administration appeared to have bypassed Congress to approve the packages by invoking an emergency authority. On the Washington Post’s inquiry, a senior State Department official refused to provide the total number or cost of all US arms transferred to Israel since October 7. All this makes US arms sales to Israel controversial, particularly when Israel’s defense forces are committing war crimes in Gaza.
Most importantly, US laws apparently restrict the transfer of military equipment to foreign governments and require the fulfilment of certain conditions. The most important is the Leahy Law, which prohibits transferring military aid to foreign governments or groups that commit gross human rights violations. Unfortunately, Israel’s defense forces, which continue to commit grave human rights violations in Gaza, remain above the Leahy Law.
There’s an interesting history behind America’s global wars. According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the US has launched at least 251 military interventions from 1991 to 2022. Big conglomerates in the weapons industry hinge on government contracts for the mass production of weapons and flourish during sustained military conflicts. This phenomenon leads us to the proposition that the more conflicts the US and its allies are engaged in, the greater the demand for more sophisticated weapons and military equipment, resulting in enormous financial gains for US weapons manufacturing companies.
According to the Watson Institute at Brown University, one-quarter to one-third of all Pentagon contracts in recent years have gone to just five major weapons contractors, viz. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. The stocks of these companies surged 7% soon after Israel invaded Gaza. These MICs have the lion’s share of the Pentagon’s defense allocation. This clearly suggests that the prolonged war’s main financial beneficiaries are the MICs.
There is no doubt that American giant arms manufacturing corporations profit from arming Israel, Ukraine, and many other states at war. The world has seen that the US hasn’t even been trying to stop Israel’s genocidal mission in Gaza. More than one million innocent people have been displaced from Gaza, and 80% of the infrastructure has been turned into ashes by indiscriminate bombing of Israeli forces.
In a nutshell, prolonging Israel’s heinous war on Gaza, avoiding even a temporary ceasefire, will further shore up profits for these MICs that breed wars as well as the indiscriminate killing of precious human lives. It’s high time for the international community to wake up and treat Israel as a rogue state that has been blatantly violating international norms and values. It’s time for the international community to stop these MICs from gaining profits from such violent conflicts. The lives of innocent Palestinians don’t deserve to be traded on Wall Street.
About the Authors
Mushaffiq Hussain, Naima, and Fareena Akhtar are students of Politics and International Studies at Karakoram International University (KIU), Gilgit.
