Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today expressed outrage at Sen. Patrick Leahy (D – VT) and a number of other Congressmen over their request that the State Department investigate reports of extrajudicial killings by Israeli security forces.
Netanyahu insisted Israeli security forces “are not murderers” and that it is wholly inappropriate to investigate them for the killings they do. This comes amid a high-profile legal dispute within Israel over an IDF medic killing an already wounded and disarmed Palestinian, though that killing wasn’t specifically mentioned in the Leahy letter.
The letter did mention Amnesty International and other NGOs reporting several other similar killings, along with the use of torture against certain detainees, including Wasim Marouf. The Leahy Law bars the State and Defense Departments from providing military aid to nations that violate human rights.
Questions about Israel’s routine use of open-ended detention, abuse of detainees, and summary executions of Palestinians are nothing new, though having US Congressmen actually raise such questions certainly is, as traditionally Israel has been viewed as immune from criticism among US lawmakers.
Netanyahu’s outrage is similarly par for the course, though the fact that he was just in the middle of a particularly ugly battle over an extrajudicial killing, and that polls have shown the vast majority of Israelis oppose any legal ramifications for a soldier executing a Palestinian in violation of orders adds considerable intrigue to the matter.
The Leahy letter also mentions the other major recipient of US military aid, Egypt, though since the Obama Administration ignored a military coup d’etat and wholesale massacres on the streets of major Egyptian cities in the wake of that coup, it’s hard to imagine complaints about repeated disappearances of dissidents is going to amount to anything.
Israel poses the greatest threat to the world in the history of the world. Their Sampson option is just for starters, but then throw in the Rothschild’s control of the world’s currency system, and the fact that Israel is the Synagogue of Satan, which intends to be the capital of the One World Government, the only thing standing between it and dominion is peoples awareness of who the real threat is, and who the true pariah, terrorist state is. PERIOD.
This is a delightful surprise. How come we’re hearing about it after more than a month. Even stranger, the Leahy Law has been in effect for years now. Israel should have been the first country subjected to it.
You are a moron.
This is the beginning of open criticism by some members of Congress re Israeli human rights abuses. This can only be for the good – Israel is slowly but surely losing its ‘untouchable’ status.
And unfortunately on college campuses criticism is israel is treated as anti-semitism.
From today’s headlines “Larry Summers: Colleges have become hypersensitive to racial prejudice. Why not anti-Semitism?”
If “the most moral army in the world” truly lives up to its claims, why shouldn’t the people funding and arming it look at what it’s doing?
The Leahy letter did not mention that the only reason Egypt receives substantial American aid, though on a per capita basis it is puny beside what Israel rakes in, is that Egypt cooperates with protecting Israel’s Southeastern flank. This purpose makes aid to Egypt de facto aid to Israel.
The letter itself did not “also mention” Egypt. Four lines were devoted to Israeli abuses while eight lines described allegations against Egypt.
All ten Members of Congress and the one Delegate are Democrats. It is unknown if the letter was circulated among Republicans. Leahy is a exceptionally partisan politician and may not have reached across the aisle.
He’s also smart so I’d wager he ran this around the other faction of the Plutocrat Party – and got the expected response. All he’s done is raise his own name closer to the top of the “Let’s make sure he’s defeated in his next election run” list.
Netanyahoo would likely be outraged if his toilet paper is on the holder the wrong way. The guy makes me want to throw up.
Leahy should focus on investigating the murders done by Muslims. Stupid fool.
Three comments, four insults. Not a record by any means, but hardly a good start. Got anything substantive, or are you just here to call people names?
Apparently most if not al the visitors to this site are neo-Nazi scum that hate Israel. All of you can go to hell.
War is the best money maker known to the rich,
trading war materials for Middle-East oil a stroke
of genius for the rich and the love of wealth,
surely that makes us sucker-bait fools to the rich.
That does capture the attitude / rhetorical policy very well. Recently Anne Bayefsky called it ‘slander’ (with the UN) and even ‘blood libel’ then did something more amusing: “In theory ‘[…] abusive or offensive […] not permitted […].” [..] In practice, […] permitted handouts that
claimed Israel “saw ethnic cleansing as a necessary precondition for
its existence.”’ Which is just another way to call it slander rather than acknowledge something’s perfect reasonable to ask (well, tell) under the circumstances.
So yeah, with the Likudniks it’s just the old a-Jew-is-not-to-be-accused. A credible accusation is a ‘blood libel.’ And this policy will backfire.