Secretary of State Antony Blinken hates the question in all forms. \u201cDo Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian and Muslim lives?,\u201d he was recently asked on a global stage. \u201cNo, period,\u201d he replied, visibly startled. That evidently satisfied nobody. \u201cDo we have a double standard? The answer is no,\u201d he had to answer yet again this week, while launching his department\u2019s annual report on human rights. It documents violations across the world, including abuses committed by both Hamas and the Israeli army. <\/p>\n
The reason these awkward questions keep coming is that much of the world simply assumes that the administration of President Joe Biden does have a double standard \u2014 according to which the U.S. condemns or punishes abuses by adversaries, such as Russia, but ignores or excuses those by friends, such as Israel. Correct or not, that perception is widespread not only in Muslim countries and the Global South but also closer to home. It\u2019s why American students are protesting on college campuses \u2014 for both sides, but disproportionately for the Palestinians.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been among those arguing that Biden has actually been better than most in showing empathy for both sides. And yet I see the pressure growing in the court of world opinion. Sometimes literally: The International Court of Justice in The Hague is deliberating in a case charging Israel with genocide in the Gaza Strip. Other times politically: Many people inside the State Department have signed protests in the internal \u201cdissent channel,\u201d and two have resigned. <\/p>\n
One of them told me that they\u2019re especially upset that the U.S. seems to be ignoring not only international but also domestic law, and specifically the so-called Leahy Law. Named after Patrick Leahy, a former senator from Vermont, it prohibits the State Department and the Pentagon from aiding units of foreign armed forces that are implicated in \u201cgross violations of human rights.\u201d At the time it was written, in the 1990s, the statute aimed at wayward commandos of the Colombian army, say. <\/p>\n
This week, though, Blinken prepared to apply the Leahy Law to a unit of the Israeli army for the first time. The plan is to withhold American aid to a battalion called Netzah Yehuda (\u201cJudah\u2019s victory\u201d). Founded for ultra-orthodox soldiers (who won\u2019t fight alongside women), this outfit has also attracted recruits from far-right Zionist settler communities in the West Bank. According to evidence the State Department has been reviewing, Netzah Yehuda has committed human-rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank. <\/p>\n
So an American censure may well be justified. But this diplomatic move is also a reminder that neither the Leahy Law nor any other purely legalistic tool can solve Biden\u2019s larger problem, which is the appearance of a double standard. <\/p>\n
The Leahy Law is designed to censure specific commandos, but not foreign nations or their governments as a whole. So if the problem in the Middle East is that Prime Minister Benjamin \u201cBibi\u201d Netanyahu orders \u201cindiscriminate\u201d (Biden\u2019s word) force against civilians in the Gaza Strip, then punishing Netzah Yehuda for what it did in the West Bank (before Oct. 7, incidentally) is neither here nor there. Moreover, the Leahy Law allows for \u201cremedy;\u201d if the Israeli government disciplines the battalion, the unit will be restored to America\u2019s favor. <\/p>\n
In that way, the Leahy Law is meant to be a moral scalpel in U.S. foreign policy, not a chain saw. And a blunt scalpel at that: It constrains the Defense and State departments, but not, say, the Central Intelligence Agency, which can work with any foreign commando it pleases. Moreover, the process is cumbersome and bureaucratic; a State Department review begins with leads from non-governmental organizations and the like, and can stretch out for months or years.<\/p>\n
In the current context, targeting the Leahy Law at Israel is mainly symbolic. Curtailing aid to Netzah Yehuda won\u2019t coax Netanyahu into moderating his policy any more than Biden\u2019s other entreaties and \u201cred lines\u201d have done, which is to say hardly at all. For his part, Bibi has already dismissed the Leahy action as \u201cthe height of absurdity and a moral low.\u201d<\/p>\n
This leaves Biden\u2019s overall message as scrambled as ever. Even as Blinken\u2019s people were finalizing their Leahy action, Congress was rushing a legislative package to Biden\u2019s desk. It will, among other things, provide another $26 billion to Israel, on top of the oodles the U.S. already sends every year. (Having received some $124 billion since its founding in 1948, Israel is easily the world\u2019s top recipient of cumulative U.S. aid.) That kit will include American bombs of the kind that Israel has also been dropping on Gazans. <\/p>\n
Only last week, moreover, Biden also sent another, altogether more ambiguous, signal in the Security Council of the United Nations. One council member, Algeria, had proposed upgrading Palestine\u2019s status at the UN from \u201cpermanent observer\u201d to full member, and 12 countries voted in favor, with two abstaining. Only the U.S. cast its veto. That was hard to explain, because Washington claims to be adamantly in favor of Palestinian statehood as the only long-term solution to pacify the Middle East. <\/p>\n
And so Biden and Blinken will keep having to answer the same pesky questions. If they want to convince the world that they don\u2019t have a double standard, they should condition military aid to Israel on the proper use of the American weapons \u2014 as the U.S. does vis-a-vis most other recipients of its aid \u2014 or halt all shipments. And at the United Nations, the U.S. should side with Israel or Palestine depending on the matter at hand. <\/p>\n
If Biden is not prepared to make these changes, no invocation of the Leahy Law can solve his problems in the Middle East. Bibi will keep ignoring him, American students will keep rioting, and the world will keep accusing the U.S. of hypocrisy. That\u2019s not a good way to run for four more years in office.<\/p>\n
____<\/p>\n
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.<\/p>\n
Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n