U.S. Resumes Offensive Weapons Sales to Major Human Rights Abuser: Saudi Arabia

Medea Benjamin

(President Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meet in 2022. Photo: Getty Images)

One issue that has slipped beneath the radar in terms of news coverage is the recent decision by the Biden administration to resume the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia. For starters, the U.S. will be sending a shipment of bombs worth $750 million in the coming months. 

These weapons were cut off by the Biden administration in 2021 because the Saudis were using them in Yemen in their war against the Houthis, which was leading to the death of thousands of civilians. 

The resumption of the sale of offensive weapons is part of U.S. efforts to push the Saudis to eventually normalize relations with Israel. In 2020, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed normalization deals that are collectively known as the Abraham Accords. The deals were brokered primarily by the Trump administration. Some of the countries that signed on, such as the UAE, view the agreement as not only a way to bolster trade, but to potentially tap into Israel’s military prowess against their historical rival, Iran. 

For the Saudis, however, normalization has been pushed off the table because of the Israel attacks on Gaza and the public sympathy for Palestinians. A December 2023 survey by the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that a near unanimous 96 percent of Saudis say that Arab countries should break all contacts with Israel to protest against Israeli attacks in Gaza. 

The Saudis say that Israel must first end the war in Gaza and, even more elusive, create a credible pathway to a Palestinian state. Saudi Arabia has told the United States it will not open diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. A Palestinian state is precisely what Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Knesset are set against. 

But U.S. officials still want to push for normalization, and the Biden administration has offered a series of incentives, including negotiating a defense pact and an agreement for civil nuclear cooperation. 

The U.S. also wants to build closer Saudi ties to drive a wedge into the peace process between Saudi Arabia and Iran that was brokered by China last year, and to counter the inroads that China is making in the region .More immediately, the U.S. wants Saudi cooperation in repelling Iranian retaliatory attacks on Israel. In mid-April, when Iran retaliated against the April 1 Israeli airstrike that killed a top Revolutionary Guard commander in Syria, the Saudis, along with Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, cooperated with the U.S. and Israel in repelling some 300 missiles and drones that Iran fired on Israel. The Israelis are now bracing for another Iranian response to the killing in Tehran of Hamas political leader Ismael Haniya. 

But the arms sales go against the Biden administration’s earlier promises of a new approach to Saudi Arabia that would focus on human rights. In 2020 Biden vowed to treat Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, as a “pariah,” mainly because of the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Despite recent cosmetic openings like musical concerts and some real reforms like giving women the right to drive and the abolition of the religious police, Saudi Arabia remains one of the most repressive countries in the world. While U.S. officials regularly criticize elections in neighboring Iran, there are no elections in Saudi Arabia. It continues to be one of the last remaining absolute monarchies in the world. 

You don’t have to look at the damning reports from groups like Amnesty International and Human Right Watch to see the extent of Saudi repression. Just look at the U.S. State Department’s 2023 human rights report. It talks about extrajudicial killings; enforced disappearance; torture; life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; lack of an independent of judiciary; punishment of family members for alleged offenses by a relative; violence against journalists and press censorship; serious restrictions on internet freedom, religious freedom and freedom of movement, including the right to leave the country; bans on independent trade unions, violence gay and transgender persons; and the excessive use of the death penalty. 

Remember: this stinging critique is coming from the US government–a major ally of the Saudis. 

More weapons to the Saudis will only strengthen this repressive regime and increase the regional conflict. But, of course, it will also increase the profits of weapons companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. That, in turn, increases the campaign coffers of our politicians. 

So the U.S. government is authorizing the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, while it continues to tout itself as the defender of the “free world.” Go figure.

---

Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK, is author of the book Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection.