Does US aid to Israel violate its own law?

El-Sayed calls out weapons transfers

Michigan's Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat, said in a CNN interview on November 5 that US weapons transfers to Israel violate the Leahy laws, the nation's own policy.

“I don't know why we are engaged in weapons transfers against the Leahy laws, our own policy, with a government that has engaged in war crimes and the worst with our weapons.”

What the Leahy laws do

The Leahy laws prohibit the federal government from providing military assistance or training to foreign security forces credibly implicated in gross violations of human rights. They were introduced in the nineteen nineties.

El-Sayed agrees with Trump

El-Sayed said he agrees with President Donald Trump's call to end four billion dollars in annual US military aid to Israel, but wants to go further and prohibit all weapons transfers.

Experts say El-Sayed has a point

Human rights experts have said the US has essentially ignored the Leahy requirements for Israel funding and slow-walked investigations to avoid sanctioning Israeli forces.

Israel has never been restricted

The US government has never used the Leahy law to restrict aid to Israel's military, despite State Department-documented evidence of human rights abuses by Israeli soldiers.

The vetting process is broken

The State Department's inspector general found in twenty twenty-five that the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum had not finalized standard operating procedures, leading to delays in investigating potential human rights abuses.

Backlog will take over a decade

The report said it would take twelve point five years for the panel to go through the backlog of alleged violations.The delays raised the risk that security assistance could be provided to an ineligible unit.

No list of ineligible units

The US government has never publicly said an Israeli military group is ineligible for aid under the law, and there is no record it has provided a list of ineligible units to Israel.

Former official says it violates law

Charles Blaha, who oversaw the State Department's Office of Security and Human Rights from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty-three, said the failure to provide a list of ineligible units to Israel violates the Leahy law.

“What all this shows is that the State Department is violating the law by basically refusing to adjudicate units for Israel.”

Experts agree on double standard

John Ramming Chappell, a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, said most experts agree the Leahy Law has not been applied to Israel in the manner it is normally applied to other…

Biden found five units violated law

Under President Joe Biden, the State Department announced in twenty twenty-four that it had found five Israeli units had committed gross human rights violations in incidents before October seven, twenty twenty-three.

Netzah Yehuda case shows inadequacy

The Netzah Yehuda Battalion was involved in the death of seventy-eight-year-old Omar Assad, an American citizen and Palestinian, in twenty twenty-two. Two officers were disciplined, but no one was charged.

Leahy himself criticizes the ruling

Former Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who left the Senate in twenty twenty-three, criticized the State Department's handling of those cases in twenty twenty-four, saying the ruling makes a mockery of the law.