Cardin: Leahy letter on extra-judicial killing allegations in Israel is ‘wrong’
Published April 6, 2016
Senator Ben Cardin, D-Md., speaking during a press conference with other leading Democratic senators at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Nov. 19, 2015. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said a letter from 11 fellow congressional Democrats asking the Obama administration to look into allegations of Israeli extrajudicial killing was “just wrong.”
Cardin in an interview published this week by the Forward was asked about the letter sent in February by a slate of lawmakers led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, asking for an investigation of Israel and Egypt under the “Leahy Law.”
“There’s no comparison here,” Cardin told the Forward. “Israel has rule of law. They have a system that will hold those individuals accountable…There’s no equivalency here.”
Authored 20 years ago by the Vermont senator, the “Leahy Law” withholds funding for military units that perpetuate human rights abuses and that are not held accountable by their national authorities. Politico first reported the letter last week.
The letter alleges that Israel and Egypt “have hindered implementation of normal mechanisms for monitoring the use” of defense assistance.
The letter cites Amnesty International reports alleging the “extrajudicial killings” of at least four Palestinian men and women. Among those named are Fadi Alloun, who stabbed a 15-year-old Jewish teen in Jerusalem and was shot and killed during the chase to apprehend him; Saad Al-Atrash, who was shot and killed as he tried to stab a soldier in the West Bank city of Hebron, and Hadeel Hashlamoum, a Palestinian woman who was shot to death after arriving at a Hebron checkpoint with a knife.
