US withheld sanctions on IOF despite abuse findings: WashPo

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: The Washington Post
Today 11:26
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The proposed aid suspension would have been the first-ever enforcement of the Leahy Law, which was enacted in the 1990s following years of US military assistance to foreign forces engaged in human rights violations.

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Israeli soldiers prepare to be deployed to the Gaza Strip near the Gaza border in southern occupied Palestine, Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2024 (AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken ultimately refrained from authorizing what would have been an "unprecedented rebuke" of "Israel’s" military after the State Department recommended halting funding to several Israeli military units due to reported abuses of Palestinian detainees in the final months of the Biden administration, The Washington Post reported, citing former officials.

The proposed suspension of aid to two Israeli military units under the Leahy Law—which bars US assistance to foreign military entities implicated in serious human rights violations—would have marked a significant moment in the Biden administration’s strained ties with "Israel", the report highlighted.

According to former officials, the US determined there was credible evidence that two Israeli military units—a military police body known as Force 100 and the interrogation division of a military intelligence unit called Force 504—engaged in what US officials deemed credible reports of abuse against Palestinian detainees.

Officials submitted two action memos to Blinken recommending the aid suspension under the Leahy Law—one in early October and a revised version later that month with a narrower scope—without any dissent from State Department bureaus.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, the officials revealed that Blinken consulted extensively within the department but left office on Jan. 20 without taking action.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) emphasized in an interview that "this is another example of President Biden’s repeated failure to apply our laws uniformly, to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for human rights violations."

“They turned a blind eye to human rights violations by the Netanyahu government and did not apply the law that applies to every country that receives U.S. military assistance,” he added.

Reports of abuse against Palestinians from Gaza detained after October 7, 2023, many held at the Sde Teiman Israeli military facility in the occupied al-Naqab Desert, sparked controversy in "Israel" and divisions within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, The Post recalled. Following the detention of reservists accused of involvement, far-right demonstrators attempted to storm the prison.

A former senior State Department official said officials spent weeks verifying which units were involved and assessing "Israel’s" accountability measures, a process that continued until the administration’s final days.

The official explained that Blinken and his advisors faced a “really difficult challenge,” believing that suspending aid to those units could jeopardize ceasefire negotiations.

A deal was reached on Jan. 16 after more than a year of failed efforts by Blinken and his team, with additional pressure from then-President-elect Donald Trump. According to the official, any suspension would likely have been overturned by the incoming administration within days.

“There was a very real possibility that finding them in violation before a ceasefire was finalized could ruin the chance of getting a ceasefire approved by the Israeli cabinet,” the former official claimed.

“So we had to make a difficult call about reaching a finding that would be symbolic for a few days but could ruin the chance of actually ending the war."

“So we were pushing forward in the process, were ready to do it, wanted to find a way that didn’t jeopardize the ceasefire, and ultimately ran out of time given how late the ceasefire was agreed to,” the former official said.

Another former official, however, stressed that the Leahy Law is unequivocal: aid should be suspended immediately upon credible reports of human rights violations, and restrictions should be lifted only if those responsible are held accountable.

State Department leadership, the former official asserted, “decided for policy or political reasons not to move forward even with clear evidence of detainees being tortured and even killed, despite the legal requirement to suspend aid to the Israeli units that were responsible for these abuses.”

The proposed aid suspension would have been the first-ever enforcement of the Leahy Law, which was enacted in the 1990s following years of US military assistance to foreign forces engaged in human rights violations.

In early 2024, the State Department identified several Israeli military units linked to abuses but determined that "Israel" had sufficiently addressed most cases.

However, officials had long considered suspending aid to the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion, which was accused of the 2022 killing of an elderly Palestinian-American man, among other violations. Ultimately, they opted against action after concluding that "Israel" “effectively remediated" problematic actions—a determination some Leahy Law experts criticized as flawed.

In a May 2024 Washington Post opinion piece, former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the law’s architect, condemned successive administrations for failing to enforce it against "Israel".

Tim Rieser, Leahy’s longtime foreign policy aide, said the law’s mandate is clear. “How anyone could argue that credible information of a gross violation of human rights does not require the secretary to act is inexplicable to me,” he said.

The Post's report suggested that the Trump administration is unlikely to revisit the proposed Israeli military aid suspension, noting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has previously argued that such measures under the Leahy Law would “stigmatize" the entire Israeli military and "encourage Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime.”