Late last year, 50 humanitarian organizations asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to make an atrocity determination related to a conflict that was drawing global attention.

“Based on the State Department’s careful analysis of the law and available facts, I have determined that members of the SAF and the RSF have committed war crimes in Sudan,” he said in a December 6 statement.

Such a determination can have important foreign policy implications, creating a legal designation for international crimes usually accompanied by limits on weapons and security assistance, economic sanctions, and other penalties.

On a near-daily basis, a State Department spokesperson takes questions from the media and is routinely pressed about the latest atrocity alleged to have been committed by Israeli forces, whether it’s gunfire aimed at civilians in a church; the bombing of hospitals, mosques, schools, universities, or residential buildings; or the cutting off of food, fuel, and medicine.

All told, the U.S. has given Israel $158 billion in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding, more than any other country since World War II, according to a March 2023 report by the Congressional Research Service.

These statements are inconsistent with the administration’s own conventional arms transfer policy, in which President Biden committed to ‘engage in appropriate monitoring’ to ensure that U.S. weapons are used in accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law obligations,” said Chappell.

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