President Joe Biden’s administration slapped more sanctions on Israelis over so-called “extremist settler violence” on Thursday — including on two outposts in the West Bank, marking the first sanctions on Israel relating to a specific area.
The sanctions are a virtual gift to the anti-Israel and antisemitic “boycott, divestment, sanctions” (BDS) movement, at a time when Biden is trying to shore up flagging Arab- and Muslim-American support. The news also came on the same day that the Biden Administration sent senior White House officials to meet with Palestinian-Americans in Chicago.
The sanctions also came a day after the Biden Administration renewed a sanctions waiver on Iran that will allow the regime to gain access to up to $10 billion in assets. The waiver is aimed at encouraging diplomacy, as Iran funds attacks on Israel, as Iranian-backed militias attack U.S. troops elsewhere in the region, and as the Iranian-backed Houthis are continuing their attacks on international shipping and the U.S. Navy in the Red Sea, disrupting the global economy.
The Times of Israel reported:
The US State Department offers information explaining the decision to sanction two Israeli illegal outposts in the West Bank and three extremist settlers.
The two sanctioned outposts are Moshe’s Farm, also known as Tirza Valley outpost, which was established in January 2021; and Zvi’s Farm, near the Halamish settlement.
The three settlers sanctioned are Moshe Sharvit, who runs the former outpost, Zvi Bar Yosef, who runs the latter outpost, and Neriya Ben Pazi, from the Rimonim Farm in the West Bank.
As with four Israeli individuals previously sanctioned, none of the affected individuals has been convicted of any crime in Israel. Accusations of “settler violence” are often created by left-wing organizations, who feed reports to the State Department. Palestinians are not sanctioned for ongoing terror attacks against Israelis in the same geographic areas.
As Breitbart News has noted, the sanctions are extremely broad, and allow for the kind of broader isolation that the BDS movement has long pushed. The BDS movement singles out the Jewish state for condemnation and isolation.
The sanctions, coming as Israel is defending itself from deadly attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah, both funded by Iran, serves to undermine Israel in the middle of a war, and sends a signal that the U.S. is not prepared to support its allies.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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