Barak Rabid broke the story claiming that three US officials have heard that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to announce sanctions against the Israel Defense Forces’ Netza Yehuda Battalion for human rights violations.
This is the first time the United States has imposed sanctions on an allied military, barring it from receiving training, funding and weapons from the United States. The sanctions would be justified by the Leahy Act, which prohibits U.S. funding to troops for which there is credible information that the troops are involved in serious human rights abuses.
This news was alarming for several reasons. First, that day came news that the United States was prepared to give Israel a large aid package, strengthening the relationship between the United States and Israel. Rumors that sanctions were being passed against IDF troops spoiled a moment when Israel should have shown its gratitude to the United States and the United States should have expressed its solidarity and support for Israel.
The decision sets a dangerous precedent.
Instead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: “If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on Israeli Defense Forces units, I will fight tooth and nail. I have spent the last few weeks opposing sanctions on Israeli citizens, including in dialogue with the American government. The idea of imposing sanctions on Israeli Defense Forces forces at a time when our soldiers are fighting a terrorist monster is the height of absurdity and moral abhorrence.”
Minister Benny Gantz said, “While we have great gratitude to our American friends, the decision to impose sanctions on Israeli Defense Forces units and their soldiers sets a dangerous precedent and threatens to erroneously target our common enemy during wartime.” It sends a message,” he tweeted. I intend to take action to change this decision. ”
The lawsuit against Netza Yehuda is ridiculous. “Netza Yehuda has been accused by Israeli human rights groups of torture, unlawful killing, and assault,” Gabriel Weiniger wrote in the Times.
These rights groups have been demonizing the IDF for 75 years, and this applies to all units of the IDF.
Weiniger writes that the soldiers were never punished. “Soldiers were blindfolded, beaten and left out in the winter cold for the death of an elderly Palestinian-American man.”
There is no other way to say it – Weiniger is lying.
There was no evidence that the soldiers beat 80-year-old Omar Assad, and Israel’s military’s top legal body, the Israeli Military Advocate General, said the soldiers involved had been disciplined.
“An inseparable part of the IDF”
As former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz tweeted, “The Netza Yehuda Battalion is an integral part of the Israel Defense Forces. It is subject to military law and has a responsibility to operate in full compliance with international law. The State of Israel has and will continue to have a strong, independent judicial system that meticulously evaluates allegations of violations or deviations from IDF orders and codes of conduct.”
Mr. Gantz’s point is important. This is because the Leahy Act provides that the U.S. military may “force any unit previously determined to be ineligible for assistance if the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State determine that the government of that country has taken or is taking effective action.” This is because support is to be resumed. To bring those responsible to justice. ” –
If the IDF does this before the US withdraws funds, why would they withdraw funds in the first place?!
Oddly, the Biden administration is waiting to impose these sanctions until Israel is in the middle of the war, the fourth year. The (false) accusations against Netza Yehuda go back many years, so why didn’t the Biden administration introduce these sanctions earlier in its administration?
More cynical writers believe that 2024 is an election year, pointing out that the battleground state of Michigan has a large Arab-American population and that the Biden administration will be able to raise the stakes in a population enraged by America’s support for Israel. One might assume that they were trying to use sanctions against the IDF to appease them.
The Biden administration favors “being in the room” as a way to influence foreign policy. That is why it rejoined the UN Human Rights Council and repaid UNRWA.
Rather than sanctioning and completely cutting off U.S. influence over the unit, insisting on human rights education for Netza Yehuda would be more consistent with their approach to diplomacy.
The negative effect of these sanctions is that Israelis will assume that the sanctions are driven by U.S. domestic political considerations and encourage their leaders to ignore U.S. directives.
It will also increase support for politicians who want to ignore America’s insistence on putting more emphasis on human rights. The sanctions would strengthen the hand of the Israeli politicians the Biden administration most wants to alienate.
What does President Joe Biden hope these sanctions will accomplish? IDF changes policy as Israel objects to insinuations that Netza Yehuda has human rights problems I can’t see any reason.
Furthermore, Netza Yehuda is not a unit that regularly trains with the American military, nor does it use American-made weapons like the Air Force or more specialized forces. Like the sanctions imposed on a small number of settlers and their farms, these sanctions appear to be at best perpetrative and at worst a waste of State and Treasury Department time and resources.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told radio host Hugh Hewitt:[The sanction idea] That’s not only stupid, it’s dangerous, not just for Israel but for the world. The United States understands the difference between the people of Israel’s Jewish homeland, who are doing nothing but trying to protect their country, and the Iranian regime, where Hamas terrorists invade their country and brutally murder their people. When not. There are thousands of people and you start saying these two things in the same moral language, which is so inconsistent with American tradition that it comes back to harm us. Yes, because the world can see that America no longer has a moral compass that can be called good. What they are is evil. I was very disappointed to see that and very concerned for America’s safety. ”
According to Hewitt’s report, when a leak from the State Department regarding IDF sanctions surfaced, House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke out on the phone with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and strongly objected to this absurdity of stabbing an ally in the back. He said he received assurances that the stabbing would not affect funding. America is donating to Israel. ”
Sullivan assured that sanctions would not affect new military aid the United States is providing to Israel, but he did not promise that sanctions would not be imposed.
Let’s hope the Biden administration reconsiders its entire sanctions strategy and focuses more on the actual human rights violations in Iran and the Palestinian Authority, rather than the false accusations used to smear Israel.
The author is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Israel, Mitzpeh Eliho. She lives with her husband and six children.
