Lawsuit accuses State Department of creating loopholes for Israel on military aid and human rights

WASHINGTON —  The State Department has carved out loopholes for Israel that give the close American ally a pass on U.S. law restricting aid to foreign militaries over human rights abuses, a lawsuit from a group of Palestinians in Gaza and American relatives asserted Tuesday.

Former State Department officials and crafters of the 1997 Leahy law were among those advising and backing the lawsuit.

The lawsuit details the barriers it accuses the State Department of creating on behalf of Israel to skirt enforcement and asks courts to intervene. That is after campus protests and moves by some lawmakers failed in their goal of limiting U.S. military support to Israel over civilian deaths in Gaza during the war with Hamas.

“It’s really a modest set of goals here: There’s a U.S. law. We’d like the federal government to adhere to U.S. law,” said Ahmed Moor, a Philadelphia-based Palestinian American who joined the lawsuit on behalf of cousins, uncles and aunts displaced and killed in the 14-month war.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has denied that the department has given Israel a pass. “Do we have a double standard? The answer is no,” he said in April. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to comment Tuesday, deferring to the Justice Department.

Israel says it makes every effort to limit harm to Palestinian civilians in its military operations. The Biden administration has warned Israel to do more to spare civilians in the Gaza war, holding back one known weapons shipment of 2,000-pound bombs.

A State Department report in May concluded there was “reasonable” evidence that Israel’s use of U.S.-provided weapons in Gaza violated international law that protects civilians but bypassed a decision on limiting arms, saying the war itself made it impossible for U.S. officials to judge for certain. It also declined last month to hold back arms transfers as it had threatened to do over humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The law bars U.S. military assistance to foreign military units when there is credible evidence of gross human rights abuses.

Charles Blaha, a former State Department official who helped oversee reviews under the Leahy law, argued that enforcing the law for Israel would have prevented much of the harm that civilians in Gaza are suffering.

“The secretary of State has made all the decisions so far on Israel and the Leahy law, and every single decision has resulted in those units being eligible” for continued U.S. military support, Blaha said. “And that’s not the way the normal process works.”

U.S. military support to Israel in the light of Palestinian civilian deaths was a fraught issue in the presidential election. Republicans and many Democrats demanded unwavering military backing to Israel. The Biden administration’s refusal to limit support cost Democrats some votes from Arab and Muslim voters and others.

Tuesday’s lawsuit is part of a last push on the outgoing Biden administration by Muslim Americans and others to limit U.S. military support for Israel — which is estimated to have reached $17.9 billion in the first year of the war — over its treatment of Palestinian civilians.

Two former Senate staffers, Tim Reiser and Stephen Rickard, were instrumental in crafting the law, named for former Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, and said the rising death toll in Gaza warranted the court case.

The nonprofit Democracy for the Arab World Now, an Arab rights group founded by slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, helped bring the lawsuit for five Palestinians and Palestinian Americans. The plaintiffs include a former Gaza math teacher and humanitarian worker who is now living in a tent after losing 20 family members and being uprooted seven times.

Hamas militants began the war with an Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, some of whom are still being held. The Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its death tolls, said the war has killed 45,000 Palestinians.

The lawsuit was filed under the Administrative Procedures Act. A range of groups including immigration advocates, Medicare groups, petroleum giants and fishermen have used the law in the past to try to shape how U.S. public agencies enforce laws.

It accuses State Department officials under President Biden of creating a series of high barriers when vetting Israel’s military for Leahy law violations. Former State Department officials, including Blaha, have accused the U.S. of effectively exempting Israel from enforcement, and the lawsuit offers some details for the first time.

It claims obstacles include setting up a multimember committee from the State and Defense departments in 2020 solely to consider possible violations by the Israeli military and uniquely requiring the deputy secretary of State to sign off on any findings of violations.

The process also carves out an additional loophole for Israel, the lawsuit says, giving its government alone a chance to stave off a restriction of military support over human rights abuses by showing it has addressed the problem.

The State Department used that exception in August, saying it had decided against cutting off aid to an Israeli military unit in the West Bank over grave human rights abuses because it removed two responsible soldiers from combat and committed to special training and oversight of remaining members. The unit was accused in the death of a 79-year-old Palestinian American man it had taken into custody.

On Monday, Blinken met at the State Department with the family of another American, 26-year-old Seattle resident Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, who was shot and killed after taking part in a demonstration in the West Bank in September.

Blinken told the family that Israel had recently informed the U.S. it was wrapping up its investigation of her death, Miller said Monday.

State officials in the 50-minute meeting “kept repeating this frankly kind of bogus claim of it being an accident,” widower Hamid Ali said after the meeting.

U.S. officials told the family they did not yet know enough details to say whether the family’s demands for an independent U.S. criminal investigation were warranted, Ali said.

Knickmeyer writes for the Associated Press.