\n<\/p>\n
When Secretary Marco<\/span> Rubio proposed a sweeping reorganization of the State Department on Tuesday, he singled out a human rights office that he said had become a platform for \u201cleft-wing activists\u201d to pursue \u201carms embargoes\u201d on Israel: the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.<\/p>\n Rubio is proposing to rename the bureau, downsize it, and shunt it under another section of the State Department. The bureau\u2019s duties include writing an annual human rights report \u2014 which has been critical of Israel<\/a> \u2014 and enforcing a law banning aid to military units that violate human rights that has rankled Israeli leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n On one level, the accusation that the bureau was a hotbed of anti-Israel activism baffled critics of the State Department\u2019s handling of the Gaza war. Their push to block weapon sales to Israel went nowhere<\/a> under Joe Biden\u2019s secretary of state, Antony Blinken<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even some of the most skeptical voices on Israel on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, have never pushed for a full-on arms embargo. Instead, they have unsuccessfully attempted<\/a> to block the sales of specific offensive weapons that have already caused widespread civilian casualties.<\/p>\n On another level, advocates say, Rubio\u2019s statement offers a worrisome sign that the Trump administration is crippling one of the few forums where critics of Israel can even have their arguments heard \u2014 albeit routinely ignored by the department\u2019s top ranks.<\/p>\n \u201cThis \u2018anti-Israel\u2019 stuff is so deeply incorrect,\u201d said Charles Blaha, who served as director of the human rights bureau\u2019s office of security and human rights from 2016 until his 2023 retirement. \u201cThe tendency in the Department is exactly the opposite. The Department is pro-Israel to the point of overlooking gross violations of human rights. The Department closes its eyes to it.\u201d<\/p>\n Days after the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas and the start of Israel\u2019s bombardment of Palestinian civilians, longtime State Department staffer Josh Paul left his post in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in protest of continued arms shipments to Israel.<\/p>\n Paul called<\/a> Hamas\u2019s attack on Israel a \u201cmonstrosity\u201d before adding that \u201cthe response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n His high-profile departure presaged months of internal disputes within the State Department over whether to keep supplying Israel with offensive weapons, including 2,000-pound bombs that caused devastation <\/a>in Gaza\u2019s densely populated urban areas<\/a>.<\/p>\n Critics of Israel have almost always been on the losing side, even when the Biden administration was publicly voicing sympathy for Palestinian civilians.<\/p>\n Only once, as the Biden administration faced criticism from the Democratic Party\u2019s left wing in the run-up to the 2024 election, did the administration halt a single<\/a> arms sale<\/a> of 2,000-pound bombs. The decision had little operational effect, but Republican critics nonetheless claimed<\/a> that it amounted to a \u201cpartial arms embargo.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Inside the State Department, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor was seen as one of the few bureaucratic factions pushing Blinken and Biden to take a tougher approach to Israel.<\/p>\n The human rights bureau, Paul said in a Wednesday interview, \u201ccertainly had a role in arguing for that suspension\u201d of 2,000-pound bomb transfers. But there was nothing inappropriate about that given the way Israel shrugged off Biden administration calls for restraint<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are tools of foreign policy, so it is absolutely appropriate, when a partner is acting in a way that is contrary to U.S. interests, that is contrary to U.S. and international law, that arms transfers should be suspended as a point of leverage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The State Department said this week that the bureau will be renamed the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Religious Freedom \u2014 dropping the emphasis on \u201clabor\u201d \u2014 and moved under a new coordinator for foreign assistance and humanitarian affairs, merging it with another bureau.<\/p>\n Paul said that on its own, slotting the bureau under the coordinator would not necessarily forecast a weakening of influence, but the move had to be placed in a broader context.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s really going to depend a lot on who is in that role, and of course the broader intent of the secretary and the State Department,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Rubio, in a Substack post <\/a>on Tuesday, explained why he was pursuing the reorganization.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against \u2018anti-woke\u2019 leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Blaha, the former bureau director, rejected that characterization. He said the bureau\u2019s role in the State Department as a sounding board for human rights advocates had to be weighed against the power of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs \u2014 the State Department\u2019s Middle East office \u2014 which both argued in favor of unqualified support for Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cThe human rights bureau is the place that activists most frequently interact with, with regards to Israel. The Israel desk doesn\u2019t really want to have anything to do with that, in my experience\u201d he said. \u201cHow is the State Department going to interact with civil society?\u201d<\/p>\n Drawing on sources such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the bureau was responsible for writing annual reports that have been critical of Israel. The last report produced under the Biden administration stated<\/a> that there were \u201ccredible reports\u201d that Israel had committed \u201carbitrary or unlawful killings, including extrajudicial killings,\u201d \u201cenforced disappearance\u201d and \u201ctorture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by government officials.\u201d<\/p>\n The State Department is planning to scale down those congressionally mandated human rights reports, NPR reported last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n Blaha\u2019s former office was at the center of an even more pointed debate under the Biden administration about whether to block aid to specific Israeli military units accused of crimes<\/a> \u2014 as opposed to the larger question of arm sales to Israel as a whole.<\/p>\n The future of that office under Rubio\u2019s proposed reorganization of the State Department is unclear. Its name does not appear on a high-level chart about the new proposed structure. (The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n Under legislation named after former Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who championed it in the late 1990s, the State Department and Defense Department are forbidden from providing aid to foreign security units that have been credibly accused of \u201cgross\u201d human rights violations.<\/p>\n The office of security and human rights was responsible for vetting specific units for U.S. aid.<\/p>\n To its namesake\u2019s chagrin<\/a>, Leahy law has never been applied to Israel. Months into the war on Gaza, however, a special Israel-vetting forum recommended cutting off aid to several Israeli military and police units \u2014 a recommendation Blinken ultimately ignored.<\/a><\/p>\n Reports indicating that Blinken might sanction one unit led to an outcry last year from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rubio, then serving as a senator, said that it would \u201cstigmatize the entire IDF and encourage Hamas, Hezbollah and the Iranian regime.\u201d Blinken never followed through<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nLong Fight in Vain<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Future of Vetting?<\/h2>\n