Can the move to enforce the illegality of US aid to Israel succeed in court?

The New Observer is reporting on a lawsuit instituted by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) that seeks to end American aid to Israel as unlawful. An article posted at their website dated Aug. 24, 2017 reads as follows:

A Washington D.C. Federal court has denied a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) application to squash a lawsuit instituted by the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) to reveal how Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program makes US aid to the Jewish ethnostate unlawful.

The ruling, made August 23 by Judge Tanya Chutkan denied the CIA's courtroom maneuver to throw out IRmep's lawsuit seeking the exact dollar value of US intelligence support to Israel.

According to a statement put out by IRmep, “acknowledging the lawsuit as one component of a broader IRmep legal effort to reveal how Israel's clandestine nuclear weapons program makes US aid unlawful, Chutkan was unpersuaded that ‘unprecedented’ levels of such aid—president Obama's words—could flow as intelligence support to Israel without the CIA knowing about it.”

The IRmep statement continued: “This lower court victory comes as IRmep's appeals court battle to block US aid to Israel heats up.

“In September, we'll provide compelling evidence to a three-judge appeals court panel about why all US foreign aid (both intelligence and military) to Israel—and a gag law blocking American officials from discussing Israel's nuclear weapons program—violate the Arms Export Control Act and the Freedom of Information Act.”

The lawsuit was, IRmep said earlier, instituted because “U.S. foreign aid to Israel is illegal, and it has been since the mid-1970s when two senators banned any U.S. tax-dollars flowing to clandestine nuclear states.

“Aid is not only a horrible investment that costs $800 for every dollar ‘invested.’ It perpetuates conflict in the region and diverts dwindling U.S. resources away from better uses here at home.”

The U.S. provides Israel $10.1 million in military aid every day.   

According to the Congressional Research Service's report "U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel," written by Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, December 22, 2016, the United States gave Israel $3.1 billion for Fiscal Year 2017 in direct bilateral military aid (also referred to as Foreign Military Financing or FMF). 

Congress also authorized $600.7 million for "joint" U.S.-Israel missile defense programs bringing total military aid to Israel to $3.7 billion per year.

This cash handover is illegal in terms of the 1976 International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act, which says that US aid cannot be given to countries which have not signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT. Israel has not signed the NPT, although it is well-known—and explicitly acknowledged as such by US government leaders—that Israel is in possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons.

Thanks to The New Observer for the great work they do.