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.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.