{"id":606250,"date":"2024-01-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-26T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/end-israeli-exceptionalism-under-us-law\/"},"modified":"2024-01-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T21:00:00","slug":"end-israeli-exceptionalism-under-us-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/end-israeli-exceptionalism-under-us-law\/","title":{"rendered":"#End Israeli exceptionalism under US law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/65a36cd1481715.89756678.jpeg?w=900\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>            <iframe title=\"Audio Article\" id=\"instaread_iframe\" name=\"instaread_playlist\" scrolling=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" style=\"display:block\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s ruling by the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2024\/01\/26\/1227078791\/icj-israel-genocide-gaza-palestinians-south-africa#:~:text=ICJ%20says%20it's%20'plausible'%20Israel%20committed%20genocide%20in%20Gaza%20The,call%20for%20a%20cease-fire.\">International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it is \u201cplausible\u201d<\/a> that Israel has engaged in acts of genocide in Gaza underscores the need to review current U.S. policy on shipping arms to that nation that are being used in attacks on the territory.\u00a0 This should mean abandoning the practice of giving Israel special treatment when it comes to enforcement of existing U.S. human rights laws regarding arms transfers. But will it?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIsraeli exceptionalism\u201d in U.S. military assistance has long been an open secret.\u00a0For decades, violations of human rights standards and U.S. laws by Israel have not been called out, in part due to a sense that the annual \u201cCamp David\u201d aid allotment to Israel \u2014 <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/best-countries\/articles\/countries-that-receive-the-most-foreign-aid-from-the-u-s\">now at $3.3 billion a year<\/a> \u2014 was inviolable.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>That may be about to change in light of the ICJ decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The war has <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/israel-hamas-war-news-01-21-2024-02caafa092668ecc7ff122229c166807\">killed 25,000 people<\/a> and displaced a majority of Gazans while depriving them of basic necessities like food and access to medical care, all in the three months since the attack by Hamas. Israel has used U.S.-supplied aircraft, missiles, bombs and artillery to carry out much of the slaughter and destruction.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But something unprecedented h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ened last week: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) forced a roll call vote on the question of whether the State Department should be required to <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/bernie-sanders-forces-senate-into-a-test-vote-on-military-aid-as-the-israel-hamas-war-grinds-on\">assess whether Israel is misusing U.S. weapons<\/a> in the commission of disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks in Gaza. Never before has the Senate (or House) even considered the question of requiring increased scrutiny by the State Department over U.S. taxpayer funded military aid to Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Israel should be held to the same standards as other U.S. arms recipients. But when it comes to Israel, the U.S. State and Defense Departments have repeatedly flouted laws that Congress passed in an effort to ensure U.S. taxpayers are not complicit in serious human rights violations by the recipient states.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A major case in point is the virtual exemption of Israel from the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.state.gov\/key-topics-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor\/human-rights\/leahy-law-fact-sheet\/\">Leahy Laws<\/a>, named after their author, former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).\u00a0The laws require the State Department and Defense Department to cut off transfers of U.S. military aid to \u201cany unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.\u201d Despite allegations of numerous <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/security-footage-shows-israeli-forces-killing-2-palestinians-at-close-range-the-army-opens-a-probe\">murders in the West Bank by Israeli security forces<\/a>, including the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/05\/11\/middleeast\/idf-apology-shireen-abu-akleh-intl\/index.html\">killing of an American Palestinian journalist<\/a> clearly indicated as working for the press, the U.S. government has never found a single one to trigger the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As Tim Reiser, a longtime Leahy staffer who spearheaded the laws <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/congress\/2024\/01\/18\/pressure-mounts-on-biden-to-leverage-human-rights-laws-on-israel-aid\/\">told Defense News<\/a>, \u201cThere is a file of correspondence that Sen. Leahy sent to various administrations over a period of more than two decades raising concerns about the failure of the administration \u2014 and it\u2019s been both Republican and Democrat \u2014 to apply the Leahy laws with respect to Israel.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Recently, The <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/jan\/18\/us-supply-weapons-israel-alleged-abuses-human-rights\">Guardian outlined how the State Department set up a special process<\/a> for Israel that essentially circumvents the Leahy Law. Unlike for other countries, where a credible allegation of abuse by a unit of the military, police or other national security forces is enough to get that unit barred from U.S. assistance until the matter is adjudicated, for Israel a consensus had to exist among all of the relevant State Department bureaus.\u00a0Any one office could prevent an Israeli unit from being sanctioned for credible allegations of rape, extrajudicial execution, indiscriminate bombings, or other major violations.\u00a0On top of this, the government of Israel was given 90 days to respond to and rebut any allegations \u2014 a privilege not extended to any other government.<\/p>\n<p>This extraordinary situation was codified in a 2021 agreement signed by a senior State Department official and the Israeli ambassador to the United States. In noting Israel\u2019s \u201crobust, independent and effective legal system, including its military justice system,\u201d\u00a0the agreement seemingly gives Israel a \u2018get out of jail free\u2019 pass when it comes to Leahy Law enforcement. The leading Israeli human rights organization, B\u2019Tselem underscored the <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2024\/jan\/18\/us-supply-weapons-israel-alleged-abuses-human-rights\">problem with this approach<\/a>: \u201cThe military law enforcement system is used by Israel as a whitewash mechanism whose purpose is to block any criticism of Israel\u2019s and the army\u2019s policies in the territories. The percentage of convictions of soldiers is close to zero, even for the most serious violations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Given well-documented reports about how the State Department applied \u2014 or failed to apply \u2014 the Leahy Law and then seemingly changed the law on its own accord, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee must require the State Department Legal Advisor to explain its reasoning and legal advice around implementation of this 25-year old law with respect to Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\"><\/aside>\n<p>Many voices decry the coming demise of American democracy if Donald Trump is reelected, pointing to his role in undermining trust in basic pillars of our system of self government \u2014 education, journalism, the courts and the Congress. But for administration after administration to ignore a basic tenet of U.S. law when it comes to Israel \u2014 despite years of protest from the powerful chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee (Sen. Leahy) \u2014 that also undermines our democracy.<\/p>\n<p>At a minimum, the Senate should hold public hearings on Israel\u2019s use of U.S. weaponry in Gaza, and the applicability of relevant U.S. laws. Failing to do so risks making both Congress and the State Department virtually irrelevant on foreign policy, even as it erodes our democracy by demonstrating the department\u2019s blatant disregard of congressional intent.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Lora Lumpe is the CEO of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.\u00a0William D. Hartung is a senior research fellow at the Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Copyright 2023 Nexstar <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/social-mediaa\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"1\" title=\"Social Media\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Media<\/a> Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/opinion\/4432064-end-israeli-exceptionalism-under-us-law\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that it is \u201cplausible\u201d that Israel has engaged in acts of genocide in Gaza underscores the need to review current U.S. policy on shipping arms to that nation that are being used in attacks on the territory.\u00a0 This should mean abandoning the practice of giving Israel&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":606251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thehill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/01\/65a36cd1481715.89756678.jpeg?w=1280","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[134353,73798,145420,73014,124783,148411,2184,148412,40445,134354,4947,135005,70289],"class_list":["post-606250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-court-battles","tag-defense","tag-gaza","tag-health-care","tag-international","tag-international-court-of-justice","tag-israel","tag-leahy-law","tag-media","tag-nexstar-media-wire-news","tag-opinion","tag-patrick-leahy","tag-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}