Israeli Government Ramps Up Moves Against US. Law and Interests
With the attention of many in the United States understandably focused on the upcoming election, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has taken a number of significant steps in the past week directly counter to U.S. law and interests:
• Israel continues its bombardment of structures sheltering displaced civilians in Gaza, including a strike earlier this week that reportedly killed dozens of women and children, which the State Department called “a horrifying incident with a horrifying result.” As civilian casualties continue to mount, a new report reveals that the State Department has received nearly 500 complaints alleging Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons for attacks that caused unnecessary harm to civilians in Gaza, but that the administration “has failed to comply with its own policies requiring swift investigations of such claims,” at least some of which “probably amount to violations of U.S. and international law.”
• Aid to Gaza has reached its lowest level since the war began more than one year ago, despite the explicit demand of Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in their October 13 letter that Israel “surge all forms of humanitarian assistance” in the territory and “end isolation of northern Gaza” immediately. Per news reports, “Humanitarian officials say conditions have deteriorated still further since the leaked letter was sent two weeks ago, with aid entering Gaza at a lower rate in October than in any month since the start of the war a year ago” and that aid arrivals “represent a fraction of the quantities demanded by the U.S.”
• As the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorates, the Israeli Knesset passed two bills that would function to block UNRWA (the UN relief agency tasked with meeting the essential needs of Palestinian refugees) from operating in Gaza and the West Bank. Secretaries Blinken and Austin had warned against this move in their October 13 letter, writing that the bills’ implementation “would devastate the Gaza humanitarian response at this critical moment…which could have implications under relevant U.S. law and policy” – an apparent reference, inter alia, to the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act, which prohibits security assistance to countries that restrict delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid.
• As the humanitarian situation in Gaza deteriorates, the Israeli Knesset passed two bills that would function to block UNRWA (the UN relief agency tasked with meeting the essential needs of Palestinian refugees) from operating in Gaza and the West Bank. Secretaries Blinken and Austin had warned against this move in their October 13 letter, writing that the bills’ implementation “would devastate the Gaza humanitarian response at this critical moment…which could have implications under relevant U.S. law and policy” – an apparent reference, inter alia, to the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act, which prohibits security assistance to countries that restrict delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid.
• The Knesset also passed a bill aimed at preventing the reopening of a U.S. consulate to serve Palestinians in Jerusalem in defiance of a foreign policy objective of the Biden-Harris administration, which has pledged to undo the Trump administration’s closure of the mission. The move amends Israel’s Basic Law to prohibit any country from establishing a new diplomatic mission other than an embassy to Israel in Jerusalem, with its backers expressly stating that its goal is “to stop an American attempt to establish a consulate for Palestinians in East Jerusalem.”