{"id":32153,"date":"2024-04-21T20:13:04","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T20:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/21\/israeli-officials-lash-out-over-potential-u-s-sanctions-on-military-unit\/"},"modified":"2024-04-21T20:13:04","modified_gmt":"2024-04-21T20:13:04","slug":"israeli-officials-lash-out-over-potential-u-s-sanctions-on-military-unit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/21\/israeli-officials-lash-out-over-potential-u-s-sanctions-on-military-unit\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli Officials Lash Out Over Potential U.S. Sanctions on Military Unit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Israeli<\/div>


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Israeli leaders have lashed out over reports that the U.S. State Department plans to impose sanctions on at least one unit of the Israeli military for alleged human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it an \u201cabsurd\u201d idea that he would work to avert.<\/p>\n

The fierce denunciations came just hours after Israeli officials welcomed<\/a> a bipartisan vote<\/a> by Congress approving billions of dollars in aid for Israel, underscoring the dramatic swings and contradictions that have characterized recent relations between President Biden and Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Biden has both chided Mr. Netanyahu over civilian deaths in Gaza and has come to Israel\u2019s aid<\/a> in repelling an attack this month from Iran.<\/p>\n

Any U.S. sanctions against the Israeli military \u2014 which the Axios news site reported will be announced in the coming days \u2014 would, however, be unprecedented.<\/p>\n

\n

Mr. Netanyahu said in a social media post that any sanctions against the Israeli military would be \u201cthe peak of absurdity and a moral low\u201d at a time when Israeli forces are fighting a war in Gaza against Hamas, which the United States and many other countries classify as a terrorist organization. Mr. Netanyahu, a conservative, added that his government would \u201cact by all means\u201d against any such move, which Axios said<\/a> will focus on the Netzah Yehuda battalion.<\/p>\n

The battalion, which has been accused of<\/a> violent incidents against Palestinians, was established for ultra-Orthodox Jewish males whose strict religious observance demands full gender separation. It also has attracted other Orthodox soldiers, including hard-line nationalists from the West Bank settler movement.<\/p>\n

Israeli politicians from within the government and the parliamentary opposition also expressed alarm over any potential sanctions against the military. Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s war cabinet and a former military chief, said it would set \u201ca dangerous precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Netzah Yehuda battalion is an inseparable part of the Israel Defense Forces. It is subject to military law and is responsible for operating in full compliance with international law,\u201d he added in a post Saturday night on X<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Israeli military said that it was not familiar with plans to place sanctions on the battalion, but that if such a decision were made, its consequences would \u201cbe reviewed.\u201d In a statement<\/a>, it added that the Netzah Yehuda battalion was currently participating in the war effort in Gaza \u201cbravely and professionally,\u201d while upholding the values of the military and the principles of international law.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration has been putting Israel on notice over rising levels of settler violence against Palestinians and anti-settlement activists in the occupied West Bank, imposing financial and travel sanctions<\/a> on several individuals<\/a> and, most recently, on two grass roots organizations raising funds for some of those individuals.<\/p>\n

U.S. sanctions against an Israeli unit could be seen as a kind of counterweight after months of criticism and fury directed against President Biden, even from within his own party, over his backing of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza as the death toll there has climbed. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed during the six months of war, according to Gazan health officials.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, asked on Friday about a ProPublica report<\/a> that a State Department panel had recommended disqualifying multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid following allegations of human rights abuses, said such investigations take time but that results would come \u201cvery soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve made determinations; you can expect to see them in the days ahead,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Then on Saturday, Axios reported<\/a> that the Netzah Yehuda battalion would face sanctions under the so-called 1997 Leahy Law<\/a> that bans foreign military units accused of committing human rights violations from receiving U.S. aid or training. The State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The New York Times.<\/p>\n

It was not clear what impact any sanctions against the unit would have, since funding of specific Israeli units is hard to track and the battalion does not receive American training.<\/p>\n

One of the most egregious episodes attributed to the Netzah Yehuda battalion involved the death<\/a> of a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man who was detained, gagged and handcuffed by members of the unit in a night raid on his village in January 2022.<\/p>\n

An autopsy<\/a> showed that the man, Omar Abdelmajed Assad, had died from a stress-induced heart attack brought on by injuries sustained while he was detained. An investigation by the Israeli military\u2019s justice system found that there were failures in the conduct of the soldiers involved, who, the military said, \u201cacted in a manner that did not correspond with what is required and expected of\u201d Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n

The Israeli military disciplined three of the unit\u2019s commanders<\/a> after the investigation. But no criminal charges were brought against the soldiers because, the military said at the time, no causal link was found between the failures of the soldiers\u2019 conduct and Mr. Assad\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Adam Rasgon, Natan Odenheimer and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2014 <\/span>Isabel Kershner<\/a><\/span> Reporting from Jerusalem<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Israeli leaders have lashed out over reports that the U.S. State Department plans to impose sanctions on at least one unit of the Israeli military for alleged human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling it an \u201cabsurd\u201d idea that he would work to avert. The fierce denunciations came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/04\/21\/multimedia\/21mideast-crisis-promo4pm-qzkt\/21mideast-crisis-promo4pm-qzkt-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1178,30767,2198,120,716,13674,221,4493],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32153"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32155,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32153\/revisions\/32155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}