United Airlines Accused Of Aiding Genocide On Israel Flights—But The Report’s Backers Support Hamas

A new report covered in The Intercept and flagged by Live and Let’s Fly alleges that United Airlines has been carrying military cargo bound for Israel on its Newark – Tel Aviv flight. The claim is that United is helping supply Israel’s military through cargo carried on ordinary passenger flights. The report identifies 2,761 allegedly military-related shipments, including weapons components and equipment going to Israeli defense companies. It argues United is profiting from, and complicit in, Israel’s military operations in Gaza, which the authors characterize as genocide. However, The report itself is shoddy There’s nothing illegal about the underlying conduct The report’s backers don’t appear to have a problem with conflict between Hamas and Israel – their issue seems to be that Hamas is losing. Research in the report was compiled by Democratic Socialists of America, the Palestinian Youth Movement, People’s Embargo for Palestine and Movement Research Unit. The report offers leads that United is carrying military components to Israel, but overstates the case and makes a shoddy legal argument to suggest United’s complicity in the region’s conflicts. And it frames with concern that this is happening on passenger flights as though there’s any danger to those on board when that isn’t the case. Shoddy Research The report cites 2,761 military shipments, but only 546 (19.8%) actually had their contents analyzed. They even acknowledge that much of this could be civilian avionics, and materials ultimately bound for customers outside Israel. They have an incomplete dataset and are inferring what’s inside the shipments. And there’s little that establishes the military importance of the cargo. And, of course, if United stopped carrying the cargo that would likely push the same shipments onto other transportation – like El Al, Israer, Delta, cargo carriers, or even dedicated charters. That might be more expensive but would do little to alter the conflict. The report inc;ludes a legal section that even gets its courts confused when arguing that Israel is committing genocide, invoking the “ICC decision on the genocide case.” In fact, South Africa’s genocide case is before the International Court of Justice. There has been no genocide conclusion in that case, with written pleadings expected through 2029. And the International Criminal Court isn’t even the forum – it prosecutes individuals. In arguing against the shipments, they lean heavily on incidents which occurred before the cargo shipments that are analyzed, so there’s no suggestion that any of the cargo has been involved in objectionable military efforts. It’s simply “Israel Bad. Supplies going to Israel bad.” And there’s nothing to suggest any safety hazards from the shipments, despite the framing of these as passenger flights carrying the cargo. Nor is there any suggestion that any of the cargo contains hazardous materials. In fact, United literally advertises government and defense cargo transportation, including commercial transport during war and peacetime. Its hazardous materials rules specify prohibited cargo, and there’s no suggestion that those are being violated. There’s a section of the report on Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which are U.S. subsidies to airlines which commit carriers to make capacity available to the military. Their list includes Breeze, Allegiant, and Southwest Airlines which lack aircraft capable of carrying significant cargo or flying to Israel. They incude American Airlines in the list, which hasn’t flown to Israel since the October 7th massacre. The Report’s Backers Want Israel Treated Like Libya, North Korea And Belarus The U.S. permits arms sales to Israel. That’s not uncommon. Arms sales are similarly permitted to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and Pakistan. A ban on arms sales would lump Israel with Afghanistan, Belarus, Myanmar, China, Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Russia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe. A comprehensive ban, of course, would include interceptors and components used to stop rockets and missiles which protect civilians, and would incentivize further attacks against civilians by Iranian proxies. Meanwhile, these arms sales produce American military benefits. Joint missile defense development and technology sharing supply capabilities used by American forces. Selling and subsidizing are separate decisions. There’s an argument for subsidies from U.S. military strategy though I don’t personally think that strategy is well-advised. However opposing taxpayer-funded military aid is a completely separate issue from actually banning Israel from purchasing weapons from U.S. defense manufacturers. And once those weapons can be purchases, supplies which support them need to be shipped as well. And They Actually Back Terrorism Megan Romer, now DSA national co-chair, wrote “we do not, in fact, condemn Hamas and why no socialist should.” Read on to learn why we do not, in fact, condemn Hamas and why no socialist should (with a bonus inside: an extremely tidy and easy-to-grasp explanation of dialectical materialism, if you're still struggling with that one) https://t.co/ylWmeaepbg — Megan Romer (@meganromer) May 24, 2024 She highlights an essay stating, “To support a resistance without Hamas is to support something which does not exist.” And it prasies “our socialist siblings in the PFLP and DFLP” for cooperating with Hamas. A Palestinian Youth Movement speaker praised Hamas’s commitment to “the path of armed struggle as a legitimate path for total liberation.” And the group’s social media declared, Hamas’s military spokesperson Abu Obaida “is with us today! Thank you!” While the report implies risk to passengers, the report’s backers implicitly endorse attacks on passengers. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, its offshoots, Black September, and related organizations have been responsible for attacks on civilian aircraft – including on U.S airlines. This includes TWA 840, Air France 139, Pan Am 830, and Pan Am 73. Hezbollah’s hijacking of TWA 847 included the murder of a US Navy diver. And Hamas has directly threated civilian airports. Genocide Isn’t ‘War I Don’t Like’ War is tragic and civil deaths should be mourned. Full stop. On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists killed approximately 1,200 people, mostly civilians, massacring families in their homes and people attending a music festival. They abducted 251 people into Gaza, including children and elderly civilians. Even the U.N. concluded that the attacks included rape and gang rape, clear evidence of sexual violence and torture of the hostages. Hamas uses civilians as human shields, and hides within the civilian population. They used hospitals as military bases. And they even faked José Andrés World Central Kitchen vehicles to disguise their movements. So while every military conflict includes harm to civilians, frequently at a much greater rate than this one, most of that blame can be assigned to Hamas itself. Whenever you hear about lamentable conditions in Gaza, append “because of Hamas” to the end of that sentence. It’s perfectly fair to critique Israel’s response to the attack by Hamas, although I think anyone doing that has a responsibility to follow that up with a realistic explanation of what response would have been acceptable to them, and explain how it would also have been acceptable to Israel’s own population (remember that we just had our 25th anniversary of 9/11, and relative to population the events of October 7th were far more significant). But it’s not fair to characterize Israel’s response as a genocide. Civilian deaths do not, on their own, establish genocide. The legal question is whether prohibited acts were committed with intent to physically destroy a protected group. Even war crimes do not automatically establish that intent. Obviously, defeating Hamas and recovering hostages are the obvious alternative explanation for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Israel targets an armed organization, rather than Palestinians because they are Palestinians (indeed, 21% of Israel’s own population is Arab). And Israel takes significant measures in its campaign to protect civilians, which is evidence against an extermination policy. They warn civilians in advance of attacks, and evacuate civilian populations. The argument doesn’t even depend on those efforts being ultimately effective to count against a claim of genocide, which is a claim about intent. There are statements from some terrible people in Israel’s government that are pretty inflammatory (there are some terrible people in our government, or who run for office, who say inflammatory things as well). Those statements do not express operative government policy. Critics often cite National Security Minister Ben Gvir, but most Americans think that’s a military position. It’s not. It’s like head of the police, but he’s been given a more grandiose-sounding title. The International Court of Justice has held that genocidal intent must be the only reasonable inference from the pattern of conduct. Evidence compatible with other purposes defeats that inference. And there has not, in fact, been a verdict against Israel on genocide despite frequent claims to the contrary. Bottom Line United Airlines is carrying cargo consistent with its legal obligations and with U.S. foreign policy. There is no demonstrated connection between that cargo and instances of conflict. Pressuring United not to carry the cargo is unlikely to have any affect on the region – least of all to support victory for Hamas, as the report’s backers appear to want. Topics on this page