“For too long, the State Department has acted as if there’s an ‘Israel exemption’ from the Leahy Law,” says group supporting the lawsuit.
by Prem Thakker December 17, 2024
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Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans filed a federal lawsuit against Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, accusing him and his department of failing to implement a law that prohibits the US from sending military aid to foreign security forces committing gross violations of human rights.
“This lawsuit demands one thing and one thing only: for the State Department to obey the law requiring a ban on assistance to abusive Israeli security forces,” Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), said, referring to the Leahy Law. DAWN is helping support the lawsuit.
“For too long, the State Department has acted as if there’s an ‘Israel exemption’ from the Leahy Law, despite the fact that Congress required it to apply the law to every country in the world. As a result, millions of Palestinians have suffered unimaginable, horrific abuses by Israeli forces using U.S. weapons,” Whitson added.
Plaintiffs include a math teacher in Gaza, identified in the lawsuit with the pseudonym Amal, who has been forcibly displaced seven times since October 2023. Twenty of her family members were killed by US-backed indiscriminate Israeli attacks.
Amal joins four other Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans in suing the US through the Administrative Procedure Act, for failing to implement the Leahy Law.
Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian-American plaintiff from the southern Gazan city of Rafah, told Zeteo that being part of such a historical lawsuit – that itself is part of a growing canon of efforts to seek justice against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – has been sobering. “There was life before the genocide, and then there’s life now and through the genocide,” said Moor, who moved to the US as a child and now resides in Pennsylvania. Several of Moor’s family members in Gaza have been displaced numerous times. Many have also died, including his cousin’s 19-year-old son, who was killed by an Israeli sniper in Rafah weeks ago. Another cousin, his wife, and their younger daughter were killed in an Israeli bombing.
Two other plaintiffs, Said and Hadeel Assali, Palestinian-American siblings, have also lost multiple relatives in Gaza, including six of their cousins killed in an Israeli airstrike, and another cousin killed by an Israeli sniper.
The lawsuit – supported by the human rights organization DAWN, the group founded by Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by the Saudi government – accuses the State Department of creating distinct and insurmountable processes to evade enforcing the Leahy Law on Israel.
The lawsuit alleges the US did so to avoid seeking accountability for Israeli violations, including torture; prolonged detention without charge; forced disappearance; genocide; indiscriminate and deliberate killings; and deprivation of food, water, fuel, and medicine. The complaint cites the State Department’s own yearly acknowledgment of Israeli human rights violations in Palestine.
The State Department said it does not comment on pending litigation. It has previously insisted it complies with the Leahy Law. Rights groups argue it has done anything but. In August, the State Department decided not to sanction Israeli military battalions accused of human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, arguing Israel was taking steps to address the issue.
Mountain of Evidence
Tuesday’s complaint comes amid mounting evidence of human rights abuses committed by Israeli forces in Palestine.
In May, the State Department itself admitted that Israel had “likely” used US arms in violation of international law – but announced no concurrent policy change.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes. A South Africa-led International Court of Justice Case accusing Israel of genocide has had several nations – including Spain, Ireland, and Belgium – join. The ICJ has ordered Israel to prevent acts of genocide (which Israel has since continued to flout) while the case proceeds.
And earlier this month, the world’s largest human rights group, Amnesty International, announced it had concluded Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
Last year, a group of human rights organizations, residents of Gaza, and US citizens with family impacted by Israel’s military campaign sued President Joe Biden, Blinken, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for failing to “prevent an unfolding genocide.” While a federal judge ruled the court did not have jurisdiction, he was critical of the Biden administration, saying it was “plausible” that Israel’s conduct amounted to genocide and urging the White House “to examine the results of their unflagging support of the military siege against the Palestinians in Gaza.”
“A Paper Trail”
Nearly 15 months into Israel’s war on Gaza and with more than 45,000 Palestinians killed and 1.9 million displaced, the plaintiffs of Tuesday’s lawsuit remain hopeful the US will stop funding units accused of human rights violations but are also managing their expectations.
“I’m hoping, through this action, through this lawsuit, that we can just call out the federal government to begin to enforce American laws,” Moor said. “Now, I’m realistic about the chances of that happening, and frankly, feels like a lot of this work is almost archival at this point. If there’s ever justice or pursuit of justice, we got a paper trail. You know, who broke what law, who actively abetted genocide, it’s all there.”
He added that at this stage, he feels “almost numb,” particularly after appealing to Pennsylvania lawmakers earlier in the war to no avail.
“It’s not so much disillusioned,” he said, but the “callousness, the powerlessness, the extreme indifference to American life” that has been especially jarring.
The article appeared in the Zeteo on 17 December 2024