Following immense pressure from Israel and its most fervent supporters, the Biden administration announced recently that it will keep giving weapons to five Israeli units that had committed “gross violations of human rights,” including a notorious battalion whose soldiers killed an elderly Palestinian-American man in the West Bank in 2022.
The decision drew sharp backlash from legal analysts and former officials, who noted that the State Department’s own experts had found the units in violation of the “Leahy law,” a 1997 statute that is supposed to stop foreign militaries from using U.S. weapons in war crimes.
In a sense, the move was standard. Israel has long been able to dodge U.S. laws surrounding arms transfers, and it even gets a special process for Leahy vetting that leaves more room for political interference, according to a former State Department official.
Indeed, the Biden administration has shown little public interest in holding Israel accountable for alleged war crimes even as Israel begins its assault on Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians have sought shelter amid the war. While the White House has reportedly held up a pair of weapons transfers in recent days, it’s carefully avoided giving a reason for the move, leaving open the possibility that the delay was caused by logistical problems.
Tim Rieser brings a unique perspective to these issues. During a long tenure as an aide to former Sen. Patrick Leahy, Rieser drafted the law that Israeli units now stand accused of violating. Today, he’s pushing for real enforcement of U.S. policy on weapons transfers as a senior adviser to Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.).
In an email exchange, RS asked Rieser about whether the Leahy law has ever really been applied to Israel and why policymakers should care. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Hellbound and Down 