The imminent White House visit by Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, and his Military Secretary, Brigadier General Naama Rosen-Grimberg, has hurled a harsh spotlight on Israel’s human rights track record. Rosen-Grimberg’s tenure as the Israeli occupation forces’ Central Command’s Intelligence Officer saw a record of human rights violations, including the arbitrary detention of 74-year-old Palestinian-American, Jamal Niser, for 12 months without charge or trail.
Rosen-Grimberg oversaw the subjugation of hundreds of innocent Palestinians, in addition to Niser, when she served in Israel’s intelligence forces. First arrested in 2021, Israeli officials claimed that Niser’s participation in Palestinian elections justified his detention. Niser, like many others in his position, faced numerous periods of four-month administrative detentions, despite being a US citizen. Today, Israel continues to prohibit the 76-year-old from returning to the US to reunite with his family or obtain much-needed medical care.
Rosen-Grimberg presided over Israel’s biased legal system of administrative detention, including the wrongful imprisonment of Niser. Systematically targeting Palestinians as a “preventive measure,” detainees are rarely given detailed indictments or access to the evidence officials use against them.
Raw Inequity of the System
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has deemed Niser’s detention, like many others in his position, ‘arbitrary’. While the Fourth Geneva Convention permits administrative detention when “absolutely necessary,” Israeli authorities themselves admit the practice is being deployed for political purposes.
Israel almost exclusively targets Palestinians under the thin guise of security with this widely recognized violation of international human rights laws. Only three months into 2023, the state held over 1,000 Palestinians in administrative detention. This number only continues to climb and sharply contrasts with the mere dozen Jewish Israelis currently being held without trial or charge.
The raw inequity of the system stains Rosen-Grimberg’s legacy, but President Herzog should not be allowed to evade responsibility for his command over this structure. With Herzog often painted as the liberal face of Zionism, Biden is meeting with him to signal his support for a moderate Israel.
But this purportedly moderate faction that Herzog spearheads has always greenlit the structural violence of the Israeli state. Thus, it is ironic for the US to claim Herzog as a crusader of democracy and liberal values in Israel. There is nothing clean about Herzog’s hands, as the Biden administration might argue. The upcoming White House meeting still sanctions violence against Palestinians—couching the perpetuity of Palestinian suffering under a liberal facade.
Will the US Take a Stand?
Calls advocating Biden to call off next week’s meeting with the Israeli President and his Brigadier General evokes some déjà vu. News broke two years ago that Biden would make a stance against those who disrespect democracy: his administration would refuse to meet with the hardline Salvadorian president, Nayib Bukele. His decision sent out a signal to the world that the US would not tolerate Bukele’s record of human rights abuse.
U.S. advocacy groups had hoped Biden would adopt the same approach for his upcoming meeting with Rosen-Grimberg. As of this week, it seems the Biden administration is moving forward with the meeting. It is now time to ask the question: What message does this send to the international community?
The Director of Research at Democracy for the Arab World Now [DAWN], Michael Omer-Man, offers an answer— “Banning Rose-Grimberg will send an important message to the United States’ partners and allies that… the Biden Administration hasn’t completely abandoned human rights in its foreign policy.”
The actions of the US government hold significant sway in shaping international behavior. When the United States chose to cut ties with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, the world followed suite; when the US voiced condemnation the genocide in the Balkans, the world took heed. Should the Biden administration allow the likes of Rosen-Grimberg entry, it would be signaling its acceptance of the human rights violations against Palestinians.
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This article was written by Mica Maltzman, Miryam Onstot, and Amina Iman, who are interns at The Jerusalem Fund. The views in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Jerusalem Fund.
