The Biden administration’s delay of a deal to sell more than 20,000 US-made rifles to Israel due to concerns over violent far-right settlers is “laughable”, Sami Hermez, an anthropologist with Northwestern University in Qatar, tells Al Jazeera.

“They’re trying to block M16s, but then they’re sending bombs to Gaza,” he said. “Why are you sending arms to an occupying entity in the first place?”

“You see the US trying to placate the public pressure globally by throwing little bones their way,” Hermez said, adding that the US is violating its own laws by sending weapons to Israel.