The U.S.’s largest Muslim civil rights organization has called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to “resign his office in disgrace” after reports emerged that he has canned his investigation into an Israeli military battalion that the State Department had concluded committed human rights violations in the occupied West Bank.
In a fiery statement on Friday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) condemned Blinken, saying that he is blatantly violating U.S. law regarding human rights in order to show yet more fealty to Israel.
“Secretary Blinken’s cowardly, morally reprehensible and blatantly illegal decision confirms what numerous State Department whistleblowers have said: he is disregarding the conclusions of career diplomats, as well as experts on federal and international law,” said CAIR Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell in a statement.
“Secretary Blinken is now as much of a war criminal as the war criminal he will continue to arm, Israeli defense minister [Yoav] Gallant, and he should resign his office in disgrace,” Mitchell went on.
As Axios reported on Friday, Blinken has reportedly told Gallant that he is ending the U.S.’s probe into Israel’s Netzah Yehuda battalion. The unit was under investigation of gross violations of human rights for various abuses committed in the West Bank over the past decade, including its role in the 2022 death of Omar Assad, who died after being detained by Israeli forces and being left to die by Israeli forces. The dual American and Palestinian citizen was 78 years old.
The State Department called for an investigation into Assad’s death shortly after it happened, and, in April, found that the battalion and four others within the Israeli military had indeed committed cross human rights violations.
At the time, it cleared the four other battalions of possibly receiving sanctions because they had “effectively remediated these violations,” the agency said — a move that one former top State Department official, Charles Blaha, said was completely unorthodox and created specifically to give Israel a pass for human rights violations. Netzah Yehuda remained under investigation for potential sanctions.
The agency said last week that it had also found that the violations by Netzah Yehuda have been “effectively remediated.” Blaha had previously written that the failure to punish Netzah Yehuda was a show that the State Department purposefully violating U.S. law, specifically the Leahy law, in order to ensure that no Israeli units are ever ineligible for U.S. military assistance.
That the unit is cleared to receive more U.S. assistance could have grave consequences. CNN reported in July that three former commanders of the battalion, who directed the unit at the time of the abuses, hold high-ranking positions within the Israeli military. These people have been training troops and directing operations in Gaza.
Their rise within the military’s ranks is a direct result of the U.S.’s lack of action on the battalion; as Blaha told CNN, these commanders could render other units ineligible for assistance if the U.S. had sanctioned Netzah Yehuda for its actions under them. Instead, these individuals are now passing their practices along to other units within the military.
The U.S. also supports the battalion financially. According to an investigation by The Intercept, the battalion has received support from a U.S. nonprofit that raises money for the battalion through tax-deductible charitable donations. The head of that nonprofit is also a major funder of the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., and has given tens of thousands of dollars to groups like AIPAC and its affiliated PACs.
Join us in defending the truth before it’s too late
The future of journalism is uncertain, and the consequences of losing it are too grave to ignore. To ensure Truthout remains fearless, tough, and 100 percent independent, we need to raise $50,000 in the next 10 days. Every dollar raised goes directly toward the costs of producing news you can trust.
Please give what you can — because by supporting us with a tax-deductible donation, you’re not just preserving a source of news, you’re helping to safeguard what’s left of our democracy.