A special State Department panel recommended months ago
that Secretary of State Antony Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and
police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they
committed serious human rights abuses.
But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal in the face
of growing international criticism of the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza,
according to current and former State Department officials.
The incidents under review mostly took place in the West
Bank and occurred before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. They include reports
of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli Border Police; an incident in which a
battalion gagged, handcuffed and left an elderly Palestinian American man for
dead; and an allegation that interrogators tortured and raped a teenager who
had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.
Recommendations for action against Israeli units were sent
to Blinken in December, according to one person familiar with the memo.
“They’ve been sitting in his briefcase since then,” another official said.
A State Department spokesperson told ProPublica the agency
takes its commitment to uphold U.S. human rights laws seriously. “This process
is one that demands a careful and full review,” the spokesperson said, “and the
department undergoes a fact-specific investigation applying the same standards
and procedures regardless of the country in question.”
The revelations about Blinken’s failure to act on the
recommendations come at a delicate moment in U.S.-Israel relations. Six months
into its war against Hamas, whose militants massacred 1,200 Israelis and
kidnapped 240 more on Oct. 7, the Israeli military has killed more than 33,000
Palestinians, according to local authorities. Recently, President Joe Biden has
signaled increased frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and the widespread civilian casualties.
Multiple State Department officials who have worked on
Israeli relations said that Blinken’s inaction has undermined Biden’s public
criticism, sending a message to the Israelis that the administration was not
willing to take serious steps.
The recommendations came from a special committee of State
Department officials known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum. The panel, made
up of Middle East and human rights experts, is named for former Sen. Patrick
Leahy, D-Vt., the chief author of 1997 laws that requires the U.S. to cut off
assistance to any foreign military or law enforcement units — from battalions
of soldiers to police stations — that are credibly accused of flagrant human
rights violations.
The Guardian reported this year that the State Department was reviewing several of the
incidents but had not imposed sanctions because the U.S. government treats
Israel with unusual deference. Officials told ProPublica that the panel
ultimately recommended that the secretary of state take action.
This story is drawn from interviews with present and former
State Department officials as well as government documents and emails obtained
by ProPublica. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to
discuss internal deliberations. The Israeli government did not respond to a
request for comment.
Over the years, hundreds of foreign units, including from
Mexico, Colombia and Cambodia, have been blocked from receiving any new aid.
Officials say enforcing the Leahy Laws can be a strong deterrent against human
rights abuses.
Human rights organizations tracking Israel’s response to
the Oct. 7 attacks have collected eyewitness testimony and videos posted by
Israeli soldiers that point to widespread abuses in Gaza and the West Bank.
“If we had been applying Leahy effectively in Israel like
we do in other countries, maybe you wouldn’t have the IDF filming TikToks of
their war crimes now because we have contributed to a culture of impunity,”
said Josh Paul, a former director in the State Department’s Bureau of
Political-Military Affairs and a member of the vetting forum. Paul resigned in
protest shortly after Israel began its bombing campaign of Gaza in October.
The Leahy Laws apply to countries that receive
American-funded training or arms. In the decades after the passage of those
laws, the State Department, under both Democratic and Republican
administrations, followed a de facto policy of exempting billions of dollars of
foreign military financing to Israel from their strictures, according to
multiple experts on the region.
In 2020, Leahy and others in Congress passed a law to
tighten the oversight. The State Department set up the vetting forum to
identify Israeli security force units that shouldn’t be receiving American
assistance. Until now, it has been paralyzed by its bureaucracy, failing to
fulfill the hopes of its sponsors.
Critics have long assailed what they view as Israel’s
special treatment. Incidents that would have disqualified units in other
countries did not have the same result in Israel, according to Charles Blaha,
the former director of the State Department’s Office of Security and Human
Rights and a former participant in the Israeli vetting forum. “There is no
political will,” he said.
Typically, the reports of wrongdoing come from
nongovernment organizations like Human Rights Watch or from press accounts. The
State Department officials determining whether to recommend sanctions generally
do not draw on the vast array of classified material gathered by America’s
intelligence agencies.
Actions against an Israeli unit are subject to additional
layers of scrutiny. The forum is required to consult the government of Israel.
Then, if the forum agrees that there is credible evidence of a human rights
violation, the issue goes to more senior officials, including some of the
department’s top diplomats who oversee the Middle East and arms transfers. Then
the recommendations can be sent to the secretary of state for final approval,
either with consensus or as split decisions.
Even if Blinken were to approve the sanctions, officials
said, Israel could blunt their impact. One approach would be for the country to
buy American arms with its own funds and give them to the units that had been
sanctioned. Officials said the symbolism of calling out Israeli units for
misconduct would nonetheless be potent, marking a sign of disapproval of the
civilian toll the war is taking.
Since it was formed in 2020, the forum has reviewed reports
of multiple cases of rape and extrajudicial killings, according to the
documents ProPublica obtained. Those cases also included several incidents
where teenagers were reportedly beaten in custody before being released without
charges. The State Department records obtained by ProPublica do not clearly
indicate which cases the experts ultimately recommended for sanctions, and
several have been tabled pending more information from the Israelis.
Israel generally argues it has addressed allegations of
misconduct and human rights abuses through its own military discipline and
legal systems. In some of the cases, the forum was satisfied that Israel had
taken serious steps to punish the perpetrators. But officials agreed on a
number of human rights violations, including some that the Israeli government
had not appeared to adequately address.
Among the allegations reviewed by the committee was the
January 2021 arrest of a 15-year old boy by Israeli Border Police. The teen was
held for five days at the Al-Mascobiyya detention center on charges that he had
thrown stones and Molotov cocktails at security forces. Citing an allegation
shared by a Palestinian child welfare nonprofit, forum officials
said there was credible information the teen had been forced to confess after
he was “subjected to both physical and sexual torture, including rape by an
object.”
Two days after the State Department asked the Israeli
government for information about what steps it had taken to hold the
perpetrators accountable, Israeli police raided the nonprofit that had
originally shared the allegation and later designated it a terrorist
organization. The Israelis told State Department officials they had found no
evidence of sexual assault or torture but reprimanded one of the teen’s
interrogators for kicking a chair.
Brett Murphy is a
reporter on ProPublica’s national desk. His work uncovering a new junk science known as 911
call analysis won a George Polk Award, among other honors.
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