The US sanctioning of IDF’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion is absurd

PRESIDENT ISAAC HERZOG meets with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Tel Aviv last week.

Reporter Barak Ravid broke a story claiming that three US sources told him that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to announce sanctions against the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda Battalion for human rights violations.

This would be the first time America would impose sanctions on an ally’s military, and outlaw the unit from receiving training, funding, or arms from the US. The sanctions would be rationalized by falling under the Leahy Law, which prohibits American funding to go to military units where there is credible information implicating the unit in the commission of gross human rights violations.

This news was disturbing for several reasons. First, the news came on the day that America was poised to pass a mass assistance package to Israel, strengthening the relationship between America and Israel. The rumors of sanctions being passed against a unit in the IDF spoiled what should have been a moment for Israel to show gratitude to America and for America to express its solidarity and support of Israel.

Decision sets a dangerous precedent 

Instead, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted, “If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF – I will fight it with all my strength. I’ve been working in recent weeks against the sanctioning of Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with the American administration. At a time when our soldiers are fighting terrorist monsters, the intention to issue sanctions against a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low.”

Minister Benny Gantz tweeted, “I have a great appreciation for our American friends, but the decision to impose sanctions on an IDF unit and its soldiers sets a dangerous precedent and conveys the wrong message to our shared enemies during wartime. I intend on acting to have this decision changed.”

Benny Gantz (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Benny Gantz (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The case against Netzah Yehuda is laughable. Gabrielle Weiniger wrote in The Times, “Netzah Yehuda has been accused by Israeli rights organizations of torture, unlawful killings and assault.”

This is true of all units in the IDF, as these rights organizations have been demonizing the IDF for 75 years!

Weiniger wrote that soldiers were never punished: “For the death of an elderly Palestinian-American man they blindfolded, beat and left out in the winter cold.”

There’s no other way to say it – Weiniger is lying.

There were no findings that soldiers beat 80-year-old Omar Assad, and Israel’s Military Advocate General – the Israeli army’s chief legal body – said the soldiers involved faced disciplinary measures.

“An inseparable part of the IDF”

As Benny Gantz, a former IDF chief of staff tweeted, “The Netzah Yehuda Battalion is an inseparable part of the Israel Defense Forces. It is subject to military law and is responsible for operating in full compliance with International law. The State of Israel has a strong, independent judicial system that evaluates meticulously any claim of a violation or deviation from IDF orders and code of conduct and will continue to do so.”

Gantz’s points are important, for the Leahy Law says that American military “assistance is to be reinstated to units previously found ineligible for assistance – when the secretaries of defense and state determine that the government of that country has taken, or is taking, effective measures to bring those responsible to justice.” –

If the IDF does this even before America withdraws funding, why withdraw funding in the first place?!

CURIOUSLY, THE Biden administration is waiting until its fourth year and when Israel is in the middle of a war to institute these sanctions. The (false) accusations against Netzah Yehuda stretch back years, why didn’t the Biden administration institute these sanctions earlier in their administration?

A more cynical writer might attribute 2024 to being an election year and point to swing state Michigan’s large Arab-American population and assume the Biden administration was trying to use sanctions against the IDF to appease a population furious at America’s support of Israel.

The Biden administration is a proponent of “being in the room” as a method of influencing foreign country’s policies. It’s why it rejoined the United Nations Human Rights Council and refunded UNRWA.

It would be more consistent with their approach to foreign affairs to insist on training Netzah Yehuda in human rights than to sanction and totally cut off American influence on the unit.

The bad will these sanctions generate translates into Israelis encouraging their leaders to ignore American direction because they assume the sanctions are driven by American domestic political considerations.

It also increases support for politicians who call to ignore American insistence on more focus being put on human rights. The sanctions strengthen the hands of Israeli politicians the Biden administration would most like marginalized.

What does President Joe Biden hope these sanctions will accomplish? Israel objects to the insinuation that Netzah Yehudah has any human rights problems, so the IDF won’t see a reason to change policies.

In addition, Netzah Yehudah isn’t a unit that regularly trains with the American army, nor do they use American weapons like the air force or more specialized units. Much like the sanctions placed on a few settlers and their farms, these sanctions seem performative at best, and a waste of the State and Treasury departments’ time and resources at worst.

Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo told radio host Hugh Hewitt, “[The sanction idea] is not only preposterous, it’s dangerous, and dangerous not just for Israel, but for the world. When the United States doesn’t understand the difference between the people of the Jewish homeland in Israel who are doing nothing more than trying to keep their own country safe, and an Iranian regime in the form of Hamas terrorists invading their country and killing barbarically a thousand people, and you begin to describe these two in the same moral terms, that is so inconsistent with the American tradition, and it will come back to harm us, because the world will see America no longer has the moral compass to call good and evil what they are. And I saw that and was deeply disappointed, and very concerned for the security of America.”

Hewitt reported that when the leak from the State Department on sanctioning the IDF surfaced, House Speaker Mike Johnson got on the phone with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to strenuously object and got the assurance that this absurd stab in our ally’s back would not affect the funding America is giving to Israel.”

Assurances were given by Sullivan that the sanctions wouldn’t affect the new military aid America was giving to Israel but didn’t promise the sanctions wouldn’t be instituted.

Let’s hope the Biden administration rethinks its entire sanctions strategy and focuses more on the real human rights abuses in Iran and the Palestinian Authority than on the false accusations used to slander Israel.

The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, Israel. She lives with her husband and six children.