Well, it looks like the moral shine of the IDF is beginning to wear thin.
Link to The Times of Israel but it is all over
Report says Blinken to target Netzah Yehuda battalion for violence against West Bank Palestinians; Ben Gvir says he will absorb unit for religious soldiers into police
Ben Gvir insists that the thugs have a job to do, so sanction the police as well I say.
The Biden administration is slated to announce sanctions against the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion for alleged human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank, the Axios news site reported on Saturday. It would be the first time the US has ever taken such a step.
The battalion has been at the center of several controversies in the past connected to right-wing extremism and violence against Palestinians, notably including the 2022 death of Omar As’ad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American who died after being detained, handcuffed, blindfolded, and later abandoned in near-freezing conditions by soldiers of the battalion.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The IDF must not be sanctioned!” he wrote on X. “I’ve been working in recent weeks against the sanctioning of Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with the American administration.
I‘ll tell you something, perhaps we should cut the cash flow entirely, $17 billion is a ridiculous sum.
Link to the source report:
Blinken Is Sitting on Staff Recommendations to Sanction Israeli Military Units Linked to Killings or Rapes Link to ProPublica
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.
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.
Yes, because the US Government turns a blind eye, and then says we have seen no evidence.
After the US veto at the UNSC refusing Palestinian full membership to the UN, our white hat is looking very sooty and internationally we are becoming isolated.
All for what?
Keeping Benny in power?
What’s next?
To be found complicit in War Crimes after the dust settles by the ICJ.
Ceasefire Now.
[Both articles are not behind a paywall and are worth reading]