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Strategies & Market Trends : World Outlook -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (43459)	9/3/2024 5:08:40 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50987

Israeli Treatment of Palestinians Remains Unchanged Over 75 Years by Melvin Goodman The Biden administration’s decision to continue funding the notorious Netzah Yehuda battalion, an ultra-Orthodox unit that operates on the West Bank, is the latest indication that the United States is unwilling to take any steps to counter Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinians. The funding of the battalion marks a major defeat for the human rights experts in the Departments of State and Defense, who argued that Netzah Yehuda should be barred from receiving U.S. support. This marks one more decision by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that ignores the need for accountability with regard to the barbarous actions of the Israeli Defense Forces. The Netzah Yehuda battalion is particularly violent in dealing with the Palestinian community. The battallion has killed unarmed civilians and suspects in custody as well as committed sexual assault and torture. it has attracted many members of an extreme religious-nationalist settler group infamous for establishing illegal outposts on Palestinian land that have no legal basis in Israeli law. In recent years, the Netzah Yehuda battalion has been involved in at least a half-dozen controversial cases involving its soldiers, resulting in jail time, discharge, or harsh criticism for assaulting or killing innocent Palestinians. U.S. funding of the battalion is a violation of the Leahy Law, passed in 1997, that prohibits the Departments of State and Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights. U.S. embassies and the appropriate regional bureaus of the Department of State vet potential recipients of security assistance. If a unit is found to have been credibly implicated in a serious abuse of human rights, assistance is denied until the host nation government takes effective steps to bring the responsible persons within the unit to justice. As a result, security forces and national defense units in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Columbia, Guatemala, and Mexico have been denied assistance in the past. The United States, of course, plays by different rules when it comes to military support for Israel. Even before Blinken made his unfortunate decision regarding the battalion, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obnoxiously proclaimed that “if anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF—I will fight it with all my strength.” U.S. presidents have been unwilling to stand up to Netanyahu who has led six of the eleven different Israeli governments over the past 28 years. This funding decision is particularly reprehensible because the battalion was responsible for the death of a 78-year-old American citizen whose stress-induced heart attack was brought on by being bound, gagged, and left on the ground by Israeli forces. Netanyahu’s government prosecuted no one in this case. One of the more feckless U.S. moves regarding the war in Gaza was President Biden’s decision to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinians via a floating military pier. U.S. officials in the Departments of State and Defense argued that the weather conditions in the Mediterranean would compromise any effort to make the pier workable. The critics were right. They wanted the Biden administration to put pressure on Israel to open land crossings for aid, but Biden refused to do so. As a result, the pier was attached to Gaza’s coast line in May and abandoned in July. Another distinguished Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe, recorded in his book, “Ten Myths About Israel,” that the discussion of the forced transfer of the Arab population in Palestine began even before Israel received its independence in 1948. The discussions evolved into a master plan for the massive expulsion of Palestinians, which was known as Plan Delat. Pappe notes that the Israeli Foreign Ministry created the myth that the Palestinians became refugees because their leaders told them to leave Palestine before the “Arab armies invaded and kicked out the Jews.” The continued violence in Gaza and the renewed violence on the West Bank points to a dark future for the Middle East, particularly for Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinian community. Israel has become increasingly isolated in the international community, and the ultra nationalism of the right wing is increasingly dominating Israeli politics. For the past thirty years, the Israelis have hidden behind false gestures of support for a two-state solution and now the possibility of a cease fire in Gaza in order to maintain military and economic support from the United States. Sadly, it is working, and Israel shows no interest in pursuing any alternative to an endless war. counterpunch.org