Why is Biden sanctioning Jewish settlers in the West Bank now? - editorial

US President Joe Biden and his staff undoubtedly have much on their minds. Re-election is likely at the forefront, especially with the Donald Trump juggernaut gaining momentum daily ahead of the November ballot.

Biden has been skewered by his party’s progressive flank over his perceived pro-Israel stance on the Gaza war and, most recently, the airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the attack last weekend on US troops in Jordan by Iran-backed terrorists.

Last week, in an attempt to stem the tide of progressive Democrats threatening to boycott the election, Biden visited Michigan, whose sizable Arab-American and Muslim population is miffed that he hasn’t demanded Israel implement a ceasefire in Gaza.

Maybe it’s against that backdrop that we can begin to understand how less than four months after Israel’s 9/11, when 1,200 people were massacred and 240 were taken hostage in Gaza, Biden signed an executive order placing sanctions against violence by Israeli extremists who attack innocent Palestinians in the West Bank.

“I find that the situation in the West Bank – in particular, high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction – has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region,” the order reads. National Security Spokesman John Kirby said that the order is a signal to the whole world about how seriously the president takes settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

While targeting four specific individuals, Biden’s order establishes a system for imposing financial sanctions and visa restrictions against individuals who are found to have attacked or intimidated Palestinians or seized their property, two senior Biden administration officials said.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the executive order will allow the US to issue financial sanctions against those directing or participating in specific actions in the West Bank, which include threats of violence against civilians, intimidating civilians to cause them to leave their homes, destroying or seizing property, and engaging in terrorist activity.

No increase in settler violence, so why have the sanctions come now?

The issue of settler violence is indeed a serious one. According to a report by the Post’s Yonah Jeremy Bob, although there hasn’t been a significant increase in the volume of Jewish violence against Palestinians post-October 6, sources in the IDF confirmed that Jewish violence against Palestinians was already unusually high in 2023 and even in 2022, compared to previous years.

According to the data, there were 32 incidents of nationalistic violence against Palestinians the week before October 7 and 24 incidents the week after.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the US executive order by emphasizing that “the vast majority of residents of Judea and Samaria are law-abiding citizens, many of whom are fighting right now in active and reserve duty to protect Israel.”

The Prime Minister’s Office added that “Israel acts against all violators of the law in all places,” and therefore, “there is no place for drastic steps on this matter.”

Whether or not there is a need for the executive order, the problem with issuing it at this time is that it appears to be a misguided and potentially dangerous attempt to create a moral equivalency between the genocidal atrocities of Hamas and Jewish attacks against Palestinians.

As former Post editor Yaakov Katz wrote on social media, Hamas is a terrorist organization that rules Gaza, has tens of thousands of fighters, and possesses tens of thousands of rockets. Its charter calls to destroy Israel.

The Israeli extremists in the West Bank are a fringe and scattered group of outlaws who, for the most part, have been involved in violent, but not murderous, incidents that are primarily under investigation.

Israel certainly must do more to infiltrate this group, arrest them, and put them on trial. But in attempting to show that he is not playing favorites and is strict with both sides, Biden is sending a message to the world – more specifically, to the not-so-marginal pro-Palestinian voter base in the Democratic Party – that Hamas terrorism is no worse than Jewish settler violence.

Drawing that equivalency will only embolden Palestinian terrorists to continue their campaign to eliminate Israel.