Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivers remarks on the release of the 2023 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, April 22, 2024. The report listed violations committed in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. (U.S. State Department)
An Israeli security unit found by the United States to have committed gross violations of human rights will continue to receive U.S. funding because its actions have been “effectively remediated,” the Biden administration said Friday.
The announcement concludes a months-long investigation that coincided with an intense lobbying campaign by the Israeli government to oppose funding restrictions for the Netzah Yehuda battalion, an ultra-Orthodox unit accused of wrongdoing in the death in 2022 of an elderly Palestinian American man.
“This unit can continue receiving security assistance from the United States of America,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
The finding amounts to a victory for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a stinging defeat for human rights experts inside the State Department and Pentagon who built a case over years that certain Israeli units should be barred from U.S. assistance under legislation known as the Leahy Laws.
Current and former officials said the decision by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to approve continued funding for the unit defied past practices of withholding assistance until serious accountability measures are taken such as criminal penalties for individuals accused of gross human rights violations.
“I have never seen a case where administrative measures such as the ones employed here were sufficient for remediation,” said Charles Blaha, a former State Department official in charge of the office that implements the Leahy Laws.
“This is especially troubling when one of the allegations against this unit is that the unit is responsible for the death of an American citizen, which really calls into question the value that the State Department places on Palestinian American lives,” he said.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not provide comment.
In 2022, a commander of the battalion was reprimanded and the platoon commander and company commander removed from their positions following the death of Omar Assad, a 78-year-old former grocery store owner from Milwaukee who had been detained at a West Bank checkpoint.
Assad was reported to have suffered a stress-induced heart attack that was probably brought on by being bound, gagged and held by Israeli forces, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement at the time. The IDF added that his death was the result of “moral failure and poor decision-making” by the soldiers who had detained him.
Though the individuals faced no criminal penalties, the State Department said it was satisfied by the measures taken by the Israeli government and noted that the individuals in question no longer serve in the military.
The Israel Defense Forces “took several steps to avoid a recurrence of incidents: it enhanced screening requirements for personnel recruited into that battalion and put in place new control mechanisms during the soldiers’ training,” said the State Department. “Soldiers now receive a two-week educational seminar unique to the battalion, and conduct is documented.”
Republicans in Congress vehemently opposed any efforts to punish the Israeli unit or any members of it, with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) saying the action would “stigmatize the entire IDF and encourage Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime.”
Blaha, who retired last year from the department and worked extensively on the case, said the consequences didn’t match what amounts to a “criminal homicide.”
“Just think about what they did: This was a 78-year-old man. They arrested him for no legitimate reason — he was never charged with anything, they gagged him, they bound him, they left him on the floor of a construction site in the middle of January. The man died of a stress-induced heart attack, according to the Israeli autopsy,” said Blaha.
“The autopsy, however, found no connection between what the soldiers did to him and his fatal heart attack. In what U.S. court would that be credible? How would that hold up?” he said.
The Israeli government told U.S. officials that the two soldiers were referred for prosecution, said a U.S. official, but those prosecutions could not go forward because witnesses declined to cooperate. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.
For months, Blinken weighed the recommendations from the panel known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum. The panel said it found multiple instances of gross violations of human rights by Netzah Yehuda and other Israeli units all occurring in the West Bank before Oct. 7. In each case, the State Department said the units had been remediated.
The review process was required under the landmark legislation created by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) that prohibits the U.S. government from providing military assistance to individuals or security force units that commit gross violations of human rights with impunity.
Long before the State Department had announced its decision, Netanyahu vowed to resist the action.
“If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF — I will fight it with all my strength,” Netanyahu said in a statement earlier this year.
