How Israel’s rogue soldiers were let off the hook

It has been two weeks since reports first emerged that the US intended to impose sanctions on the Netzah Yehuda battalion of ultra-orthodox soldiers in the Israeli army for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank.

The reports raised expectations that the Biden administration was at last standing up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right extremist government on the issue of international and human rights law, imposing penalties for the first time on an Israeli military unit.

The Leahy Laws, introduced in 1997, prohibit the US State Department and Defense Department from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that have been credibly implicated in a serious abuse of human rights, until the host government takes effective steps to bring the responsible people to justice.

Before the Gaza war, a State Department special panel investigated allegations about the conduct of five Israeli military and police units that operate in the occupied West Bank, and recommended their disqualification from receiving US aid. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked during a press conference in Italy last week about the recommendations and he gave the impression that sanctions would follow in a matter of days.

The Netzah Yehuda, established in 1999, comprises ultra-orthodox men and religious nationalists from the settler movement. They are a separate unit to accommodate their religious beliefs, including a refusal to serve with female soldiers. When the unit was based in the West Bank it was accused of numerous human rights violations against Palestinians. One case in particular attracted Washington’s attention. Omar Assad, an 80-year-old US citizen, was bound and gagged and forced to lie on his stomach for up to an hour after being detained by Netzah Yehuda troops at a checkpoint near Ramallah in January 2022, and died from stress-induced cardiac arrest.

In June 2023, the Israeli military said the soldiers involved in the incident would be reprimanded but would not face criminal charges because there was no medical evidence that they had caused Assad’s death. Israel temporarily moved Netzah Yehuda to the Golan Heights but the unit returned to Gaza and the West Bank after the October attack by Hamas.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described proposed sanctions on Netzah Yehuda as a “big deal” that sent “an unambiguous political message.” But it added: “Israel’s entire political echelon needs to be held accountable. The US should say so unequivocally … instead of sanctioning a rogue battalion, the US should focus on Netanyahu and his ministers.” Predictably, however, the official Israeli reaction was to reject sanctions, which Netanyahu said would be “the height of absurdity and a moral low” that he would “fight with all my strength.”

The Israeli army said the Netzah Yehuda soldiers were “currently participating in the war effort in the Gaza Strip … professionally and bravely conducting operations in accordance with the IDF Code of Ethics and with full commitment to international law.” Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet, told Blinken that sanctions would be a mistake because they would harm Israeli’s international legitimacy at a time of war, and because Israel’s judicial system was “strong and independent.”

The State Department appears to have buckled under the pressure. In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Blinken said he planned to postpone “a decision on blocking aid to the unit to give Israel time to right the wrongdoing.”