Follow Steve Postal: @HebraicMosaic
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This week, the Biden administration is planning on sanctioning Israel’s IDF unit Netzah Yehudah for alleged human rights violations. The administration is preparing to prevent the battalion from receiving any US aid and training, leveraging the 1997 Leahy Law that prohibits such aid and training to foreign military and police that have violated human rights. The State Department is also considering applying such sanctions to other IDF units, and has been investigating IDF units “for well over a year,” according to Israeli press. In fact, the State Department has established a “Israel Leahy Vetting Forum” which months ago recommended that “multiple” Israeli police and military units be sanctioned under the Leahy Law.
The State Department’s pending sanctions come right from the playbook of a radical far left NGO. According to Arutz Sheva (citing Israel Hayom), Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) has been pushing for the Biden administration to sanction Israeli military units. DAWN was founded by Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist with a checkered past who was murdered by Saudi agents in October 2018. By looking at a recent report by NGO Monitor, as well as DAWN’s own words, DAWN has been agitating against Israel for quite some time. DAWN stands for the following:
Sanctioning the IDF. DAWN called for the State Department to sanction Israel’s military as recently as April 19 of this year. In November 2022 and June 2023, DAWN asked the State Department to apply the Leahy Law to sanction Israel’s Netzah Yehudah battalion. In July 2023, DAWN then asked the State Department to do the same thing, on the same grounds, to Israel’s YAMAN counter-terrorism unit.
Arms Embargo to Israel. In November 2023, DAWN called for an arms embargo to Israel, especially calling out the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Italy, and the Netherlands. DAWN had similarly called for an arms embargo to Israel in August 2021. A mere week after Hamas’ October 7 attack, DAWN called on the United States to “monitor and restrict [the] use of U.S. weapons by Israel to avoid complicity in war crimes.” DAWN had specifically signed a letter to the Biden administration calling for an end to weapons sales to Israel in July 2021. In May 2021, DAWN opposed the State Department granting Israel an export license for $735 million in weapons.
Political cover to Hamas. DAWN has run interference for Hamas several times. After Hamas’ October 7 attack, DAWN’s executive director bizarrely predicted that the attack would cause “…major PR problems for Israel because each death will confirm it’s [the October 7 attack perpetrators] an Israeli ISIS.” In December 2023, again rather than condemning Hamas for October 7 and its continued war crimes, DAWN called on the ICC to prosecute 40 IDF officers for war crimes over Israel’s counter-offensive against Hamas. DAWN’s Director of Research for Israel-Palestine called Israel’s trial of Mohammad al-Halabi “outrageous” in February 2022, only to see an Israeli court convict al-Halabi months after for diverting aid money away from an NGO to Hamas.
Upending US interests in the Middle East. DAWN is not only seeking the unravelling of the US-Israel relationship, but the dismantling of the United States’ relationship with many of its Arab allies as well, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. DAWN’s website contains specific profiles criticizing Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Jordan, and “Israel-Palestine,” and several articles critical of Bahrain and Morocco. In contrast, DAWN does not devote similar energy to condemning Iran, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Qatar, Turkey, or Algeria. DAWN also opposed the Abraham Accords, and later called on its Arab signatories to withdraw from the Accords and cease military cooperation with Israel. These data points all suggest that DAWN favors a complete upending of US foreign policy in the Middle East.
Spreading libels against Israel. DAWN has called Israel an “apartheid” country multiple times, and has falsely accused Israel of not living up to obligations to vaccinate Palestinians during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ties to CAIR. Lastly, DAWN’s board includes Nihad Awad, the Executive Director and co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Awad has made several pro-Hamas statements, including immediately after October 7, and CAIR has supported the BDS movement, claims that Israel is an apartheid state, and its members have spread anti-Semitic rhetoric in the US.
It remains to be seen if the Biden administration will move forward on sanctioning the IDF. While Israeli readouts of recent conversations between Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken indicate that Israel is trying to convince the Biden administration to not sanction any IDF units, the State Department’s readouts of both calls interestingly omit this discussion. However, one thing is clear: the Biden administration is on the verge of implementing policies of a highly anti-American, anti-Israel NGO.
