The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, declined to say on Wednesday whether the Biden administration will sever U.S. aid to an Israeli military unit accused of human rights abuses, saying the matter was for the State Department to decide and that the White House would not intervene.
The State Department is weighing action against the Israeli military battalion, Netzah Yehuda, under a U.S. law that bars American equipment, funds and training from going to foreign military units found to have committed gross human rights violations. “The State Department will make these judgments,” Mr. Sullivan said at a White House news conference.
State Department officials declined to comment on the matter.
The unit has been investigated in Israel for crimes in the West Bank predating the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks against Israel. Following reports that the State Department might recommend it be denied U.S. military aid, Israeli officials have pressed the U.S. government not to cut off aid to the battalion in what would be the first action of its kind by the Biden administration.
Netzah Yehuda was established for ultra-Orthodox Jewish men whose strict religious observance demands that men and women be separated. The battalion has attracted other Orthodox soldiers as well, including hard-line nationalists from the West Bank settler movement.
Asked about the matter by reporters on Monday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken declined to address specifics but said, “I think you’ll see in the days ahead that we will have more to say, so please stay tuned on that.”
A recent flurry of reports about the Biden administration’s plans, which strike one of the most sensitive nerves of the U.S.-Israel relationship, was further complicated earlier on Wednesday by the House Republican speaker, Mike Johnson.
In an interview with the conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, Mr. Johnson said that Mr. Sullivan had recently sent him a written commitment that none of the billions of dollars in emergency aid for Israel, just passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden, would be denied to the unit.
Mr. Johnson even seemed to suggest that Netzah Yehuda may suffer no American consequences at all, even though Israeli officials have indicated that they expect imminent U.S. action against the battalion.
On Saturday, as the House was voting to approve a $26 billion aid package for Israel’s military and humanitarian aid for Gaza, Mr. Johnson, who is a strong supporter of Israel’s conservative government, said that he called Mr. Sullivan to insist that none of the money would be denied to Netzah Yehuda.
“No one knows this, but I called the White House immediately and talked with Jake Sullivan, and Tony Blinken was overseas at the moment,” Mr. Johnson said, according to a transcript of the interview on Mr. Hewitt’s website. “But I made him send me an email where he committed to me in writing that it would not affect any of the funding that we were working on to assist Israel in this critical time, and that they would be very judicious in that.”
Mr. Johnson also warned that he would challenge any punitive U.S. measure.
Mr. Sullivan “indicated to me that that won’t happen, that there were some allegations of some event many years ago,” Mr. Johnson said. “It seems to have been resolved, and I am very hopeful that they won’t try to proceed on that. If they do, we’ll intervene.”
Netzah Yehuda has been accused of human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank over several years, including the January 2022 death of a 78-year-old Palestinian-American man in its custody.
The Israeli military investigated the incident and disciplined three Netzah Yehuda commanders, but brought no criminal charges against its soldiers.
Source link: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/25/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas