Knesset Constitution Committee debates foreign sanctions on Israeli civilians

Israel's Knesset Constitution Committee convened on Wednesday for a debate on sanctions by foreign countries against Israeli civilians, nearly all of them due to accusations of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

According to a document prepared for the committee by the Knesset's research center, states that slapped sanctions on Israeli individuals and groups include the US, the European Union, Britain, France, Canada, and New Zealand. The sanctions were applied to a number of civilians accused of attacking Palestinians or damaging their property, a number of outposts and farms in the West Bank from wshich attacks were allegedly launched, and a number of groups, including Lehava, Tzav 9 (which attempted to block humanitarian aid from entering Gaza), and more.

Israeli journalist Barak Ravid reported in July that the US had even considered sanctioning ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Committee chairman MK Simcha Rothman said at the start of the meeting that the sanctions were a "violation of [Israeli] sovereignty in the most basic sense," as well as "a step that also harms the judicial system by expressing foreign states' lack of trust in the system and in legal processes." According to Rothman, accusations of "violent settlers" was a "modern blood libel." Rothman argued that the fact that sanctions were also slapped on Tzav 9 revealed that the US was interested in sanctioning anyone who it viewed as a threat to the two-state solution. This would include nearly all of Israel's Jews, as a recent vote in the Knesset rejecting Palestinian statehood passed with a significant majority, and without any no objections from Jewish Members of Knesset, Rothman pointed out.

Rothman criticized the defense ministry and the IDF for failing to send a representative to the meeting. He also said that he had invited the ambassadors of all of the states listed above to the debate, but none attended.

A representative of Israel's Foreign Ministry said during the meeting that the ministry "acted and was acting at all levels to prevent and minimize" the sanctions. Some of the sanctions were based on information that was "incorrect, biased, and distorted," the foreign ministry representative said, adding that the UN should be receiving information from official government and IDF bodies, and not from Palestinian sources or from Israeli NGOs.

Violence in the West Bank

Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz said later on Wednesday during a meeting with Judea and Samaria local authority heads and officials from the Yesha Council that he has said to his peers in the world, including to the US Treasury Secretary, that there was "no such thing as settler violence" and that "the state of Israel has an independent judicial and law enforcement system that is capable of operating independently."

According to its website, the UN's office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) between the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023 and July 29, 2024, OCHA recorded 1,143 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, of which 106 led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries, 905 incidents led to damage to Palestinian property, and 121 incidents led to both casualties and property damage.

During the meeting, Dr. Michael Wolfowicz of the Hebrew University, said that OCHA statistics prior to the war, from 2006 to 2023, recorded 62 "incidents" per month on average. Broken down, this included an average of 9.77 events categorized as intrapersonal violence, and the rest was property damage or trespassing. Wolfowicz argued that the data set a number of flaws, such as that visits to the Temple Mount were considered trespassing, that some events were double counted, and that some acts that were committed in self-defense were categorized as violent acts.  

Wolfowicz also argued that UN policy to combat extremism was to invest in education and welfare, as socio-economic levels were considered a key risk or protective factor. Economic sanctions would negatively affect the Israeli settlers who were involved in extremist acts, and therefore, according to Wolfowicz the sanctions were antithetical to the UN's own approach.

A US embassy spokesperson said in response to a Jerusalem Post query regarding its decision not to attend the meeting, "The Ambassador receives a wide range of invitations, only some of which he is able to accept. We note, however, that the violence we are seeing in the West Bank is unacceptable and must stop. Civilians are never legitimate targets and must be protected, as reflected in international law.

The authorities must take measures to protect all communities from harm, this includes intervening and stopping such violence. The United States has taken steps to impose visa restrictions and economic sanctions on individuals and entities perpetrating or supporting violence and destabilizing actions in the West Bank, and we will continue to do so."