US sanctions West Bank settlement group
The US imposed sanctions on groups involved in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on November 18th, including a group that has close ties with Israel’s leadership, according to AP.
Groups sanctioned by the Treasury include Amana, the biggest organisation involved in illegal settlement development in the West Bank and has no relation to the US appliance maker, and subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd.
Amana had already been sanctioned by the UK and Canada, and settlement tracking group Peace Now says its assets are valued at around 600 million Israeli shekels, or $160 million, with an annual budget stretching into tens of millions of shekels.
According to Peace Now, Amana in recent years has underwritten loans, signed contracts, bought equipment and funded infrastructure projects for new settlements.
The State Department also imposed sanctions on Eval Hari Yehuda Company, which provides construction logistics to groups under sanctions, as well as owner of the company Itamar Yehuda Levi.
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Also hit with sanctions were co-founder of the already sanctioned nonprofit group Hashomer Yosh, Shabtai Koshlevsky and Zohar Sabah, an Israeli citizen who has attacked Palestinians.
Treasury’s Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the U.S. “remains committed to holding accountable those who seek to facilitate these destabilizing activities, which threaten the stability of the West Bank, Israel, and the wider region.”
The sanctions deny the individuals and firms access to any property or financial assets held in the US and prevent US companies and US citizens from doing business with them, among other things.
Joe Biden issued a executive order back in February targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank accused of attacking Palestinians and Israeli peace activists in the occupied territory. That order is used to justify the financial penalties against the individuals and companies.
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Texans for Israel, a non-profit Christian group, Israeli non-profit Regavim and others in August sued the Biden administration in Amarillo, Texas, in response to its sanctions against Israeli extremists in the West Bank.
Human rights lawyer Eitay Mack, who ahs campaigned for years for sanctions on West Bank settlers, called a sanctions on Amana “an earthquake for the settlement project and especially the shepherds farms.”
He called on the sanctions to be extended to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Iamar Ben Gvir, who is himself a settler, in PM Netanyahu’s cabinet.
The leadership of Amana has appeared at pro-settlement events alongside cabinet members, and Peace Now says secretary general Zeev Hever was greeted by Smotrich at a conference in June where the minister laid out his plans for the West Bank.
Around 8,000 Palestinians have been displaced in the West Bank since the war in Gaza started last October, and 700 have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials and the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
AP has reported that the sanctions have had minimal impact, instead emboldening settlers to attack and take land, according to Palestinians in the West Bank, local rights groups and sanctioned Israelis who spoke to AP. Smotrich has also vowed to intervene on sanctioned settlers’ behalf.
Israel took over the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza strip in the 1967 war. There are now over 100 settlements and 500,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said “we once again call on the Government of Israel to take action and hold accountable those responsible for or complicit in violence, forced displacement, and the dispossession of private land. The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who further destabilize conditions in the West Bank and support extremist violence in the region.”
AP, Reuters
