The US as Mediator and Belligerent in Israeli War Crimes

The US Government's Conflicts-of-Interest are Exemplified in Its Treatment of the Haredi Military Unit, Netzu Yehuda

Look in your search engine for the Israel army unit entitled, Netzu Yehuda. Many points of division and contention meet in Israel’s and the USA’s relations with Netzu Yehuda. This convergence helps explain the larger phenomenon that has put the US government in a massive conflict of interest as it tries to be both mediator and belligerent in its partnership with Israel.

Netzu Yehuda is the main Haredi fighting unit in the Armed Forces of Israel.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/522290.aspx

Haredi Jews are sometimes referred to as Orthodox. With strong family values and high birth rates, they form a fast-increasing minority in Israeli society. Their rising numbers readily translate into increased political clout.

The opposition of Haredi Israelis to being conscripted combined with their devotion to full-time Torah study far into adulthood, forms the basis for an increasingly divisive issue among Israeli Jews.

The tension between the majority population in Israel who are compelled to do military service and the Haredi religious group, have become more intense since the initiation of the genocidal assault on Palestinians on October 7 of 2023. As the casualty figures of Israeli soldiers rise, there is growing resentment among many Israelis aimed at those who are able to avoid serving in the Israeli Defence Force. The angst generated among other Israelis by the Haredi exemption from military service is compounded by the Haredi enjoyment of disproportionate access to free social services paid by the government.

For decades the contentions surrounding the exemptions from military service for the Haredi citizens of Israel have formed an important part of adversarial domestic politics. In the midst of all this controversy, an intensifying spotlight of public attention is being pointed at the Netzu Yehuda, the sole Haredi fighting unit in the Israeli Defence Force.

This religious unit has a reputation for being especially vicious in attacking and torturing Palestinians. It seems strange that the only religious unit in an Army would be among its most aggressive predators. In their Haredi studies, how much reading of the Talmud accompanies the reading of the Torah?

See the following video, a rare critique of the IDF by a major media venue in the United States.

The Netzu Yehuda unit was investigated by the US State Department for its record of violent treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank before October 7. Many episodes of uncalled-for-violence and killing were explored including the murder in 2022 of a peaceful Palestinian-American individual, 78 year old Omar Assad.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-mulling-sanctions-against-other-idf-units-for-alleged-rights-violations-sources/

https://www.axios.com/2024/08/09/idf-west-bank-israeli-blinken

It seemed in April of this year that sanctions were about to be brought by the State Department against Netzu Yehuda and other IDF units. Then Antony Blinken changed his earlier position and no action was taken.

The US government is subject to a Congressional enactment originally brought forward by Senator Patrick Leahy in 1997. According to the terms of the Leahy Law, the US cannot assist military units known to have violated human rights law. Obviously the US Armed Forces regularly violates the Leahy Law in its relationship with the Israeli Armed Forces. In order to expedite this serial violation of US law, the US State Department has formed an entity known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum.

Israel Defence Department’s Minister Yoav Gallant joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in pressuring the US government to hold back from sanctioning units of the Israeli Armed Forces including Netzu Yehuda. Said Netanyhu, “If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF, I will fight it with all my strength.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/21/us-poised-impose-sanctions-israel-defense-force-netzah-yehuda-battalion

Antony Blinken claimed that he decided not to adhere to the Leahy Law by imposing sanctions because he was satisfied that the IDF had itself made sufficient “remediations” to render US intervention unnecessary. This verdict speaks to a much larger systemic problem in the US-Israel partnership. This issue has been put on full display in the course of the genocidal debacle underway in Gaza and the West Bank.

Again and again Blinken and other US officials softly chastise the IDF and the Netanyahu government for specific atrocities in a very extensive array of specific war crimes and crimes against humanity. Instead of following through by bringing about external procedures of research and arbitration, the US government consistently trusts Israeli officials to investigate themselves. The Biden/Harris government clearly does not want to risk embarrassing its Israeli partners in war by facilitating external procedures of inquiry and arbitration.

The more this practise and other like it continue, the more it becomes apparent that the US government is a partner of the Israeli government in this genocide. The US role goes far beyond “complicity” in genocide.

This understanding is essential to appreciate the core flaw in the format of the negotiations aimed at bringing about an end to this grotesque complex of elaborate crimes against all of humanity. The US government violates the global community by pretending that it can be the primary mediator in a conflict in which it is obviously a full-fledged partner with the primary aggressor in the so-called “war.”

How long will it take before there is any precise accounting of all the ways the US government has partnered with Israel in genocidal procedures that start with the supply of massive bunker buster bombs designed for the indiscriminate annihilation of large masses of civilians?

Antony Blinken has made himself a ridiculous embodiment of his dual role as mediator and belligerent. Often his role in the most recent quest for a ceasefire seems more like that of a lawyer for Benjamin Netanyahu than a representative of the US government.

The following is a Netzu Yehuda military propaganda video