( Middle East Monitor ) – The report by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics at the beginning of the new year, 2025, regarding the reverse immigration of Jews was like fuel poured on the fire of political conflicts in Israel, because the bleak number appearing in the headlines of the Israeli media represented the balance of reverse immigration of Jews outside the Occupation state. 82,000 were removed from the population figure, which was bad news for its political and security circles.

This shocking statistic immediately turned into a new political debate among Israelis, added to their series of endless debates, especially since the available data indicated that this immigration was concentrated on professionals, doctors and technicians due to their despair over the conditions of the state.

While right-wing supporters have exploited these shocking figures to criticise those who are migrating from the state, opponents of the government have used them to attack it. Between the two sides, the phenomenon of reverse migration has turned into another battlefront added to the seven-front war fought by the Occupying state, and evidence that life in it has become unbearable.

While Israelis appear in a hurry to disagree and differ about the accuracy of these figures, and to put the blame on each other, it is impossible to understand what is causing the sharp jump in this reverse migration, given the assertions of the Israelis who are migrating outside the state that they have lost hope in it.

At the same time, this data confirms that experts in the fields of technology, economics, medicine and culture are the main examples of those migrating from the state, because they are no longer able to find a place for themselves in a state that promotes laws limiting their personal freedom, stifle creativity and suppress their private property. It is worth noting that reverse migration of Jews began during the time of the protests that took place against the legal coup, with the Gaza war giving many of them the sense that it was time to leave.

Moreover, the unfair economic policy of the right-wing government, the Haredi’s opposition to compulsory military service, the threats against academic institutions, the attacks on the Supreme Court, the ongoing war in Gaza and the failure to return the kidnapped soldiers, have all restored the fears of Israelis, their lack of confidence in their state, and their fear that they will face more trouble and will not be able to return to it in the future.

Along with the media outlets that have reported the data on reverse Jewish immigration, in recent months, Israeli research centres have noticeably focused on the growing trend of educated young Jews leaving the country, which could harm its economy and social structure. Their motivation behind leaving includes political instability, the economic situation, the cost of living, social tensions and fears of a legal coup.

“Exodus,” Digital, ChatGPT, 2024

What truly worries Israel is the age of these immigrants, as 48 per cent of them are between 20 and 45 years old, and 27 per cent are children and adolescents. The vast majority are under 45 years old and are looking for a better quality of life, due to the deteriorating economic situation, the increasing cost of living and the difficulty of obtaining housing and employment, with a greater degree of inability to access good public services.

There is a prevalent belief among Israelis that the repercussions of this reverse migration on Israel will be major, while the right-wing government is content with attacking the phenomenon through “populist” posts on the Internet, without in-depth analysis, and without providing practical solutions. This is because, in practice, these immigrants have a decreased sense of belonging to the state and its culture, and their connection to it has declined, due to the shock of war, the loss of confidence in the leadership and the economic crisis.

The increasing number of Israelis who are reverse migrating from the Occupying state nowadays coincides with the wave of anti-Occupation sentiments and hatred that is raging in the world due to its crimes against the Palestinian people. Given the political and social division that the country is witnessing, the immediate result of this phenomenon is the radical step towards immigrants being separated from the country, family, friends and immediate surroundings and, in some cases, there is no way back.

In conclusion, the phenomenon of Jews’ reverse migration from Israel signifies a moral failure of the state, and an explicit declaration of its failure to strengthen the connection of Jews coming from all over the world to an Occupied land that is not their land. This is an expected result of the deepening social division in recent years, the prevalence of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric among them and the state’s permission allowing extremist fascist forces to drag the rest of the Israelis into dangerous internal conflicts that may destroy what remains of the state’s immunity.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Middle East Monitor

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The total includes direct military expenditures, civilian costs, and losses in revenue, though it does not fully account for all the economic consequences. The Bank of Israel carried out the projections, which were published by the Israeli business newspaper Calcalist.

The article characterized the financial burden as substantial, speaking of the “failure” of the war effort, which underscored the need for significant increases in Israel’s defense budget over the next ten years. It also highlighted that the discussion of the war’s financial impact and outcomes is taking place against the backdrop of talks about the parliamentarian security and defense budget review committee, known in Israel as the “Nagel Committee,” after its chair, Yaakov Nagel.

Calcalist indicated that this future budget would involve purchasing more aircraft, helicopters, armored personnel carriers, large quantities of weapons and ammunition, in addition to investing in personnel or the Israeli soldier himself.

“Dollar Tank,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas cross-border assault, the Israeli military has killed over 46,000 individuals, the majority of whom were women and children in Gaza. The offensive has devastated the region, and widespread famine is now a looming threat.

This fiscal pressure has ignited debates within Israel, particularly regarding the redirection of funds from natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean, which were initially designated for sectors like healthcare and education, but are now likely to be diverted to defense spending.

On January 7, 2025, the Jerusalem Post quoted a report from the Nagel committee suggesting an increase in the defense budget of up to $4.1 billion over the next five years. The Israeli newspaper clarified that this increase is intended “to ensure that the Israeli Defense Forces are equipped to handle regional challenges and threats.”

The report also recommended strengthening the multi-layered air defense systems, including the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow systems, and the newly operational laser defense system.

In terms of border security, the Nagel report suggested constructing a fortified security barrier along the Jordan Valley, which would represent a major shift in Israel’s defense strategy, despite potential diplomatic repercussions with Jordan.

On January 6, 2025, the office of the Israeli Prime Minister stated that Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, had received the recommendations from the “Nagel Committee.”

Middle East Monitor )

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The article has been reorganized and rephrased, with information added from Al Jazeera and SamaNews..

( Middle East Monitor ) – Israel’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) funded by European Union research programmes to target civilians is attracting a lot of criticism. Since the Israeli attacks on Gaza began on 7 October, 2023, the EU has provided over €238 million ($246m) to Israeli institutions for research and innovation. The funds are believed to have supported the development of AI-driven “location and killing” technology used by Israel against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Nozomi Takahashi, a member of the board of directors of the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCAP), told Anadolu that they are aware of allegations about EU funds aiding AI technologies targeting civilians. Takahashi said that they had addressed the issue in letters to high-level EU officials, including former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

She pointed to AI-based systems used by the Israeli army called “Habsora” (The Gospel), “Lavender” and “Where is Daddy?” She said that these systems are used “to identify, locate and kill the targets in the current genocide in Gaza.”

Emphasising that these systems are used indiscriminately against civilians, Takahashi noted that, “Such extrajudicial killing is prohibited by international law. The scale and frequency of civilians killed in Gaza using such AI systems are devastating.”

The ECCAP official highlighted the EU’s particular focus on AI development, and said that Israeli research institutions are also involved in various EU-funded projects in this field. However, identifying which EU-funded project underpins those used by the Israeli army is impossible due to confidentiality and secrecy. “The potential high risk associated with such technology in the hands of a government that has a record of human rights violations should raise the alarm.”

Only civilian projects, added Takahashi, are eligible for funding through the Horizon Europe programme. “The development of such AI technology further blurs the border between civil and military applications.” She criticised the EU for its “narrow focus” when evaluating the goals of the projects that it funds, with insufficient monitoring and overlooking the potential for their use in the military.

Takahashi highlighted that Horizon Europe’s ethical principles require funded projects to uphold “respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights, including the rights of minorities.” However, the research entity’s history with military activities or human rights violations is “neither questioned nor required” during ethics reviews, she claimed.

According to Eman Abboud, a lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, it has been demonstrated that EU funds have financed arms companies under the guise of civil security and tech research. She said that the EU is “culpable” by supporting the military industry in Israel — the state is currently facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) — through its funding programmes.

“Israeli companies such as Elbit Systems Ltd. and Israel Aerospace Industries, which profit from and are deeply complicit in Israel’s long-term violent oppression and apartheid, as well as the current genocide of the Palestinian people, have received funding for security research from European funding programmes,” explained Abboud.

Criticising the ability of organisations contributing to human rights violations and the undermining of international humanitarian law to benefit from EU funds, she said, “The EU has refused to sever its trade links with Israel or ban them from Horizon Europe,” despite the ongoing ICJ case against the occupation state.

“Lavender Genocide Bot,” Digital, Midjourney, 2024

She referenced EU-GLOCTER, a “counter-terrorism” project involving Israeli institutions, noting the links to Israel’s military and intelligence, including Reichman University’s International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), which was co-founded by a former intelligence chief. “We must understand that institutions like these provide the means to create the intelligence apparatus that is used to target specific civilians in Gaza and in Lebanon. We cannot separate them, given the strategic dual use of academic research funding and military research funding.”

The AI technology developed within the Israeli military named Habsora, generating automated and real-time targets, frequently strikes civilian infrastructure and residential areas, with the number of civilian casualties always being known in advance.

The Lavender technology analyses data collected on approximately 2.3 million people in Gaza using ambiguous criteria to assess the likelihood of an individual’s connection to the Palestinian resistance group Hamas.

Sources told Tel Aviv-based +972 and Local Call that, early in the Gaza attacks, the military was “completely reliant” on Lavender, automatically targeting males it flagged, without oversight or specific criteria. Lavender has marked approximately 37,000 Palestinians as “suspects”.

Using the AI-based system called “Where is Daddy?” Israel simultaneously tracks thousands of individuals and when they enter their homes targeted individuals are bombed, with no regard for the presence of civilians, including women and children.

These AI technologies are known to make computational errors frequently and disregard the principle of “proportionality”. They have played a significant role in the killing of over 45,850 Palestinians since 7 October, 2023.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

According to media sources, the hospital is now under tight siege from Israeli forces, which keep firing live ammunition around it.

Most of those inside the besieged hospital are women and children as well as a number of wounded people who are completely unable to move.

The director of the Indonesian Hospital already stated that the facility had run out of all medical supplies, calling for urgent international action to save the lives of wounded civilians.

He pointed out that the Israeli army continued to bulldoze and destroy the area around the hospital today.

He added that the Israeli army also destroyed the hospital’s oxygen and electricity sections, making it impossible to provide vital medical services.

The attack on the health facility comes one week after Israel raided and forcibly evacuated the Kamal Adwan Hospital, sending those in need of urgent medical care to the Indonesian Hospital.

There are now no operational hospitals in northern Gaza, leaving the lives of the 300,000 Palestinians in the area at risk, while Israel continues what Amnesty International and other rights groups have declared is a genocide against the Palestinian people.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English: “Volker Turk briefs first meeting of UNSC of 2025 in New York”

The article, initially published under the headline “If you support the Palestinian cause in any form, you’re facilitating Jew-hate” was later changed to “The truth of the Palestinian cause” without any editorial note explaining the modification. The UK press regulator IPSO has been called upon to investigate these changes.

In the article, Phillips argued that support for Palestinian rights, regardless of context, facilitates “deranged and murderous Jew-hatred.” She wrote: “Let’s not hear any protests that you were once a member of Habonim or have a holiday home in Herzliya… If you support the Palestinian Arab cause today, you are facilitating deranged and murderous Jew-hatred. Own it.”

“The Jewish Chronicle has secretly changed the headline and words in the article, without any apology or acknowledgement (the article remains disgusting),” said Muslim Council of Britain Spokesperson Miqdaad Versi, tagging press regulator IPSO.

The Jewish Chroncile have secretly changed the headline & words in the article, without any apology or acknowledgement (the article remains disgusting)

Their editorial standards are so poor @IpsoNews https://t.co/MF26qKaGcL pic.twitter.com/VezVcFjlek

— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) January 1, 2025

Versi pointed out that the article initially said: “If you support the Palestinian Arab cause in any shape or form, you are [facilitating deranged and murderous Jew-hatred]” before it was changed to, “If you support the Palestinian Arab cause today, you are [facilitating deranged and murderous Jew-hatred].”

In the tsunami of denunciations, one twitter user listed Israel’s actions over the past year in Gaza and said that Phillips’ claim basically means that: “Being against rape is anti-Semitism. Being against torture is anti-Semitism. Being against starvation is anti-Semitism. Being against murder is anti-Semitism. Being against ethnic cleaning is anti-Semitism. Being against genocide is anti-Semitism.”

Photo of pro-Palestinian demo by Mohamed Jamil Latrach on Unsplash

Commentator Owen Jones pointed out that the article is “very helpful, actually,” because, “Melanie Phillips is explicitly stating what Israel’s cheerleaders have long been pushing for. They want to redefine anti-Semitism as ‘any form of solidarity with Palestinians’, rather than the very dangerous hatred of Jewish people that it is.

While Phillips insists on labelling any solidarity with Palestinians “anti-Semitic”, she has argued that there is no such thing as Islamophobia. Writing in the same newspaper, she said that the very concept of Islamophobia is itself “anti-Semitic”. In her article “Don’t fall for bogus claims of ‘Islamophobia’”, she argued that concerns about anti-Muslim racism were being used to “silence any criticism of the Islamic world.”

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

( Middle East Monitor ) – When Israel’s far-right extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich acknowledged in October his aim for a Jewish state that encompasses not only all of the Palestinian territories, but also extends to Syria, some speculated about how such a goal would be achieved. In Israel’s classic strategy of “bit by bit”, according to Smotrich, Tel Aviv will eventually have to cut further into Syrian territory as “it is written that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus”.

That ominous admission threw further light on the potential pursuit of the Zionism’s “Greater Israel” project, which would cover Jordan, Lebanon, part of Egypt, Syria, Iraq and part of Saudi Arabia. The occupation state would claim the lands as its own and impose Israeli statehood on the local people, unless they too suffer ethnic cleansing as the Palestinians have.

If Israel’s extremists take Damascus, the region will be destabilised; the regional chessboard will be overturned. They would not simply be taking on resistance groups — as is the case in Gaza and Lebanon — but they would also need to invade and conquer an independent, sovereign state. The more covert, proxy dynamics in place up until now would be replaced by a full-scale state v state war. It’s a risky endeavour.

However, the ouster of the Assad regime on 8 December left a security vacuum that enabled Israel to destroy Syria’s major military defence capabilities and deploy its armed forces further into Syrian territory beyond the occupied Golan Heights. Israeli forces are now just kilometres from Damascus.

Assad’s supporters have responded with glee, of course, because this strengthens their spurious claims that the dictator was the only one standing in the way of such an Israeli invasion; that the “axis of resistance” against Israel is now weakened; and that the new Syrian authorities are complicit with the occupation state and even acting as its agent.

Such allegations, though, can be dismissed, not least because the Assad regime has been in contact with Israel for years, and never took any action to regain its territory annexed by Israel or otherwise challenge the occupation. Moreover, the Israeli attacks and destruction of Syria’s defence capabilities more likely prove that Tel Aviv is extremely wary about its new neighbours in charge of Syria.

More than anything, Tel Aviv saw Assad as a useful buffer against any real threat.

It knew that his regime would never mobilise against Israeli forces, at least not effectively. Israeli policy towards Assad has for decades been to maintain a Syria that was strong enough to oppress its own people but never strong enough to pose a military threat in the neighbourhood.

The new Syrian government’s initial attitude towards the Israeli moves into Syrian territory have done little to discredit the allegations of collaboration with the Zionist state as they grapple with this dilemma. Consider, for example, the comments by the governor of Damascus, Maher Marwan, in an interview with NPR, in which he expressed understanding that “Israel may have felt fear” after the fall of Assad, “so it advanced a little, bombed a little, etc.” He has, on the face of it, taken what is in effect an invasion of his country very lightly indeed.

Damascus aims to have cordial relations with Israel, he claimed, stating that, “We have no fear toward Israel, and our problem is not with Israel.” He reportedly stressed that, “We don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security. We want peace, and we cannot be an opponent to Israel or an opponent to anyone.” Moreover, a spokesman for HTS avoided the question of Israel’s 300 air strikes on Syria when questioned by Britain’s Channel 4 News.

Syria’s de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa – also known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad Al-Julani – has expressed his willingness to return to the 1974 agreement with Israel and once again have UN peacekeepers deployed within the demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights.

“We do not want any conflict whether with Israel or anyone else and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks,” Al-Sharaa told the Times in London earlier this month. “The Syrian people need a break, and the [air] strikes must end and Israel has to pull back to its previous positions.”

“The White and Blue over Damascus,” by Juan Cole, based on Unsplash images spliced with IbisPaint and processed by Clip2Comic, 2024

Syria’s interim government, rather than having any genuine sympathy towards Israel and its actions, seems to understand the fact that Syrian forces have little to no significant military capabilities to counter the Israeli occupation forces, let alone to launch any kind of offensive to recapture occupied territory.

Given that Israel is reported to have destroyed around 80 per cent of Syria’s air, land and sea defence capabilities, Al-Sharaa is taking a pragmatic approach. His main mission is to stabilise the domestic situation in a number of ways, chiefly by consolidating the security position and striking an agreement among former anti-Assad groups to unite under the Defence Ministry; disarming former regime soldiers; and trying to absorb Kurdish fighters into the new Syrian Army.

In terms of government, the new authorities are still organising their administration. The interim cabinet will serve until March 2025, at least, and a “National Dialogue Conference” is planned to determine the issue of Syria’s governance.

Al-Sharaa is also making efforts to strengthen Syria on the diplomatic front.

He has hosted numerous delegations from the international community over the past three weeks, and secured a number of significant deals covering the rebuilding of Syria’s infrastructure and the revival of its aviation systems. He now seeks to have all sanctions lifted so that the Syrian economy can be revived, and to persuade the US and other Western powers to remove the group which he heads, Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), from their “terrorist” lists.

Syria’s new leader and the people around him know that doing or saying anything against Israel will likely damage their efforts to stabilise their country. With neither the military capabilities nor diplomatic leverage in place, they know that they cannot force the occupation state to the negotiation table. Moving against Israeli forces in south-west Syria despite the obvious security threat that they pose, will block any real chance of the incoming Trump administration and other Western governments delisting HTS and giving formal recognition to the new government in Damascus.

Nevertheless, Al-Sharaa has a couple of cards up his sleeve to challenge Israel’s encroachment on Syrian territory: Turkiye and the Gulf States. Turkiye’s involvement in the former opposition offensive and the ouster of Assad is no secret, and it has already expressed support for Syria’s new leadership on military, infrastructural and economic terms. Damascus could well utilise that partnership to have Ankara not only strengthen the new administration, but also to serve as a counterbalance to Israel.

While that may be tempting, it is an option that would be perceived as aggressive. Senior Israelis, including former army officers as well as media outlets are already expressing concern that Turkiye is taking the place of Iran and Russia in Syria and this, claim some, is “limiting Israel’s freedom of action”.

The Gulf States, however, provide a more diplomatic option for Damascus.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and even Qatar – although Israel would be sceptical of the latter – have made overtures to the new Syrian authorities, and they could be expected to invest heavily in Syria’s economy and infrastructure in the coming years. Such partnerships could be used to get Damascus and Tel Aviv talking.

For now, therefore, Syria’s administration is using a diplomatic hand to counter Israeli aggression, in the hope that the occupation state will not see Al-Sharaa and his colleagues as a security threat. The big question is: how will Israel respond?

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Muhammad Hussein is an International Politics graduate and political analyst on Middle Eastern affairs, primarily focusing on the regions of the Gulf, Iran, Syria and Turkey, as well as their relation to Western foreign policy.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The baby succumbed to the harsh weather as a result of the dire living conditions in Gaza, where destroyed homes and infrastructure leave residents exposed to harsh weather, local health authorities confirmed.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the ongoing Israeli aggression since October 2023 has left thousands of families without adequate shelter, food, or medical care, contributing to worsening health crises. Over 45,436 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 108,038 injured since October 2023, officials said.

It comes after a three-week-old baby girl died in a tent encampment in Al-Mawasi in the southern city of Khan Yunis on Wednesday, Dr Munir Al-Bursh, the director general of Gaza’s Health Ministry, said on his X account.

Sela Mahmoud Al-Fasih “froze to death from the extreme cold,” he explained.

“Frozen Angel,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / IbisPaint, 2024

Moreover, Dr Ahmed Al-Farra of Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis reported two additional deaths on Tuesday.

“A three-day-old baby and another baby, less than a month old, both died after a severe temperature drop,” he said.

The suffering has become particularly extreme in Khan Yunis, where many Palestinians displaced by over 14 months of indiscriminate attacks have sought refuge in makeshift camps.

“The tents do not protect from the cold, and it gets very cold at night, with no way to keep warm,” Al-Farra explained. Newborns face heightened risks as malnutrition among mothers reduces the quality of milk they can provide.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to deepen as Israel’s strikes continue unabated, displacing over 90 per cent of the population, many repeatedly. Despite appeals from the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire and warnings from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about preventing genocide, the assaults persist.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, presents detailed allegations that Blinken has deliberately circumvented the Leahy Law through procedural mechanisms designed specifically to shield Israel from accountability. The Leahy Law explicitly bars US military aid to foreign security units credibly implicated in serious human rights abuses.

Blinken, who is Jewish, is accused of ignoring mounting evidence of Israeli crimes. The apartheid state stands accused of genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and it’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The plaintiffs include Amal Gaza, a pseudonym for a mathematics teacher from Gaza who has been forcibly displaced seven times since October 2023 and lost 20 family members to Israeli attacks; Ahmed Moor, a US citizen whose relatives in Gaza face imminent threats from Israeli operations; siblings Said and Hadeel Assali, who have lost multiple family members including six cousins killed in an Israeli air strike in November; and Shawan Jabarin, executive director of the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq.

The 39-page complaint outlines how the State Department has established what it calls the “Israel Leahy Vetting Forum” (ILVF), which the plaintiffs argue creates “distinct and insurmountable processes” to avoid enforcing the Leahy Law on Israel. The lawsuit contends that this special forum imposes uniquely burdensome procedures for reviewing allegations against Israeli forces that are not applied to any other country.

A striking element of the complaint highlights that while the State Department has suspended thousands of security units from other countries under the Leahy Law since its enactment in 1997 – including units from Bangladesh, Colombia, Mexico, and Nigeria – it has not suspended a single Israeli unit, despite extensive documentation of rights violations.

“Blinken of Arabia,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024

The lawsuit comes at a critical time, with the complaint noting that Israel has received approximately $17.9 billion in US military aid over the past year, effectively providing more than half of Israel’s weapons arsenal since October 2023. The plaintiffs argue this assistance has enabled Israeli forces to commit widespread human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank.

The legal action seeks several remedies, including compelling Blinken to provide Israel with a list of units ineligible for US aid and obtain written assurances that such units will not receive assistance. It also calls for a permanent injunction prohibiting US aid to Israeli security units where credible evidence exists of human rights violations.

“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,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), which is supporting the legal action. “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.”

The complaint particularly focuses on the State Department’s handling of credible reports of violations. It cites that while the Department’s own annual human rights reports consistently document Israeli security forces’ involvement in serious abuses, these findings have not triggered the mandatory restrictions required by the Leahy Law.

A specific example highlighted in the lawsuit involves the case of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, which was implicated in the death of a 78-year-old American citizen of Palestinian origin, Omar Assad, yet continued to receive US assistance despite what plaintiffs argue was inadequate remediation of the incident.

The legal document alleges that the State Department’s calculated failure to apply the Leahy Law is “particularly shocking” given the unprecedented escalation of Israeli aggression since October 2023, citing findings by the ICJ regarding plausibly genocidal actions and the ICC’s arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

Bruce Fein, counsel for the plaintiffs, filed the lawsuit under the Administrative Procedure Act arguing that Blinken’s actions and omissions constitute both procedural and substantive violations of the Leahy Law, undermining its core purpose of preventing US complicity in human rights abuses.

The case represents one of the most significant legal challenges to US military assistance to Israel and could have far-reaching implications for US foreign military aid policies if successful.

Via Middle East Monitor

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Informed Comment.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. A sentence was altered.

( Middle East Monitor ) – It was bound to happen. With continuing operations in Gaza and increasingly violent acts against Palestinians in the occupied territories, human rights organisations are making progressively severe assessments of Israel’s warring cause. While the world awaits the findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on whether Israel’s campaign, as argued by South Africa, amounts to genocide, Amnesty International has already reached its conclusions.

In a 296-page report sporting the ominous title “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”, the human rights body, after considering the events in Gaza between October 2023 and July 2024, identified a “pattern of conduct” indicating genocidal intent. These included, among other things, persistent direct attacks on civilians and objects; “deliberately indiscriminate strikes over the nine-month period, wiping out entire families repeatedly launched at times when these strikes would result in high numbers of casualties”; the nature of the weapons used; the speed and scale of destruction to civilian objects and infrastructure (homes, shelters, health facilities, water and sanitation infrastructure, agricultural land); the use of bulldozing and controlled demolitions and the use of incomprehensible, misleading and arbitrary evacuation orders.

The report does much to focus on statements from the highest officials to the common soldiery to reveal the mental state necessary to reveal genocide. One hundred two statements made by members of the Knesset, government officials and high-ranking commanders: “Dehumanised Palestinians, or called for, or justified genocidal acts or other crimes under international law against them.” The report also examined 62 videos, audio recordings and photographs posted online featuring gleeful Israeli soldiers rejoicing in the: “Destruction of Gaza or the denial of essential services to people in Gaza, or celebrated the destruction of Palestinian homes, mosques, schools and universities, including through controlled demolitions, in some cases without apparent military necessity.”

From its alternative universe, the Israeli public relations machine drew from its own agitprop specialists, working on mangling the language of the report. The formula is familiar: attack the authors first, not their premises. “The deplorable and fanatical organisation Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated response that is entirely based on lies,” came the howl from Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein.

Other methods of repudiation involve detaching Hamas and its war with Israel from any historical continuum, not least the fact that it was aided, supported and backed by Israel for years as a counter to Fatah in the West Bank. Isolating Hamas as a terrorist aberration also serves to treat it as alien, artificially foreign and not part of any resistance movement against suffocating Israeli occupation and strangulation. They, so goes this argument, are genocidal, and countering such a body can never be, by any stretch, genocidal. The pro-Israeli group NGO Monitor abides by this line of reasoning, calling allegations of genocide against Israel: “A reversal of the actual and clearly established intent of Hamas and its allies (including its patron, Iran) to wipe Israel off the map.”

Israel’s closest ally and sponsor, the US, proved predictable in rejecting the findings while still claiming to respect the humanitarian line. The US State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson, Vedant Patel, expressed disagreement with: “The conclusions of such a report. We had said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded.” Patel did, however, pay lip service to the: “Vital role that civil society organisations like Amnesty International and human rights groups and NGOs play in providing information and analysis as it relates to Gaza and what’s going on.” Vital, but only up to a point.

Far less guarded assessments can be found in the US pro-Israeli chatter sphere. These follow the usual pattern. Orde Kittrie, senior fellow of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a name that can only imply that crimes committed in such a cause are bound to be justifiable, offers a neat illustration. Amnesty, he argues: “Systematically and repeatedly mischaracterises both the facts and the law.” Kittrie suggests his own mischaracterisation by parroting the Israel Defense Forces’ line that Hamas had: “Increased casualty counts by illegally using Palestinian civilian shields and by hiding weapons and war fighters in and below homes, hospitals, mosques, and other buildings.” This conveniently ignores the point that the numbers are not necessarily proof of genocidal intent, though it helps.

“Crimes against Humanity,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024

The report also notes that, even in the face of such tactics by Hamas, Israel was still: “Obligated to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and avoid attacks that would be indiscriminate or disproportionate.”

Amnesty International’s report is yet another addition to the gloomy literature on the subject. Human Rights Watch, in November, pointed to violations of the laws of war, crimes against humanity and the provisional measures of the ICJ issued urging Israel to abide by the obligations imposed by the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948. The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem stated in no uncertain terms in October that: “Israel intends to forcibly displace northern Gaza’s residents by committing some of the gravest crimes under the laws of war.”

Battling over the designation of whether a campaign is genocidal can act as a distraction, a field of quibbles for paper-pushing pedants. The “specific intent” in proof must be unequivocally demonstrated and beyond any other reasonable inference. A smokescreen is thereby deployed that risks masking the broader ambit of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But no amount of pedantry and disagreement can arrest the sense that Israel’s lethal conduct, whatever threshold it may reach in international law, is directed at destroying not merely Palestinian life but any worthwhile sense of viable sovereignty. Amnesty Israel, while rejecting the central claim of the parent organisation’s report, did make one concession: the country’s brutal response following 7 October, 2023: “May amount to crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Via Middle East Monitor