This is from eight days ago and has already been walked back, apparently. It seems like threatening negative steps and then walking them back is how the administration gets Netanyahu to back off certain things.
Yeah, I was just about to say that this had been called off. Disgusting. If we have an embargo against Azov, we should have an embargo against all ideology driven paramilitary units.
Is the embargo against Azov good policy? My impression is that Azov has substantially de-nazified since 2014, and that their distinctiveness today comes primarily from their reputation for violence/toughness rather than war crimes or Nazi ideals. I guess there are political reasons to avoid aid (Russian propaganda, for example) but I find this a bit of a strange analogy given that Azov's sanctioning was itself
controversial, with the Pentagon allegedly pushing back on it, and with it needing special legislation to be sanctioned precisely because it wasn't thought to have violated the Leahy Act's prohibitions on funding for units that have committed "gross violation(s) of human rights."
More to the point, in what ways is the Netzah Yehuda battalion comparable to Azov? I'm certainly no fans of theirs -- they are much more religious than I am, for example -- but they definitely aren't Neo-Nazis. And I'm not aware of any gross violations of human rights they've committed that would actually fall under the Leahy Act, which is part of why Speaker Johnson recently called the White House to demand that the recent aid package not exclude them.
