‘What in the Hell Does That Mean?’ Dem Rep. Says State Dept. Israel Report Weaselly and Wrong, Israel Follows Rules

On Tuesday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) criticized the State Department’s report on Israel for engaging in meaningless wording and stated that Israel follows standards set for it.

Sherman said, [relevant remarks begin around 44:45] “I have told the State Department that I don’t think that they phrased things correctly in that report. But the fact is that, potentially violate, everybody potentially might have violated. What in the hell does that mean? But the fact is, that Israel not only complies with the standards, but they have a system for reviewing their own military. Look, in Vietnam, we didn’t comply with all the standards, but Lieutenant Calley went to prison, because we identified and we had a system for reviewing the actions of our individual soldiers. Israel has that as well. They are conducting a number of investigations. So, according to Israel, it is possible that some of their soldiers acted wrongfully. And, according to America, it is possible that some Israeli soldiers have acted wrongfully. But that — the Leahy standard isn’t that you cut off weapons to an ally because some soldier may have acted wrongfully. You…want to see the top echelons of any allied government implementing standards to hold their soldiers accountable. Israel does that, and that’s why the ratio of civilian to terrorist deaths in Gaza is actually considerably better than what we saw in Mosul and Fallujah.”

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