Biden’s EO 14115: A threat to Israeli sovereignty and civil rights - opinion

On February 1, 2024, the Biden administration issued Executive Order 14115, announcing a state of national emergency in the United States to better address the threat to the nation’s security, its citizens, and US foreign policy posed by “the situation in the West Bank – in particular high levels of extremist settler violence… posing a threat to peace, security, and stability in the West Bank, Israel, and the Middle East as a whole” and “threatening United States personnel and interests.” The Executive Order (EO) explicitly – and unprecedentedly – addresses an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the… foreign policy of the United States.”

It is important to note that these sanctions may also be imposed on any individual or entity – including government entities – that directly or indirectly assist a sanctioned individual or organization. Consequently, lawyers are barred from representing sanctioned entities; individuals and organizations are prohibited from supporting or making donations to cover legal fees incurred as a result of sanctions; individuals, businesses and even government institutions are prohibited from transferring funds – including salaries, pensions, stipends and more – to sanctioned individuals.

The Israeli banking system is also required to cooperate with the sanctions regime by restricting the bank accounts of sanctioned Israeli citizens – who have not been charged with or convicted of any crime. While the tool of sanctions is intended to target foreigners only, in practice, US citizens holding dual citizenship have been affected both directly and indirectly, in violation of their constitutional rights.

The sanctions regime is draconian and secretive; sanctioned individuals are given no warning, no due diligence is conducted, the sources of information upon which sanctions are based are undisclosed, and there is no due process of indictment or trial, no presentation of evidence or any means of mounting a defense before the imposition of sanctions, nor is there any system through which sanctioned individuals or organizations receive official notification when sanctions are imposed upon them.

Aside from these anti-democratic aspects of the sanctions regime, EO 14115 suffers from glaring and unique legal and procedural flaws:

Lack of equity: Executive Order 14115 has targeted Jewish Israelis exclusively, under the premise that they  – and only they – are involved in “destabilizing” actions. No parallel steps have been taken to impose sanctions on Palestinian Arabs or their anti-Israel accomplices, agitators and sympathizers who are irrefutably organizers and perpetrators of mass-scale violence and terrorism against Jews in Judea, Samaria, Israel and beyond.

To attempt to offset this glaring lack of equity, one Palestinian Arab terror group, “The Lion’s Den,” the Jenin-based perpetrators of a wave of anti-Israel terrorism, was sanctioned under EO 14115. Sanctioning this group, which has effectively been eradicated through a series of IDF operations in Jenin, exposes the cynicism of the sanctions as a whole: The Lion’s Den is not a legal entity, holds no bank accounts, has no board of directors or recognized leadership, meaning that the sanctions against the Lion’s Den have had zero impact on anyone. In short, sanctioning an amorphous shadow group of unnamed terrorists is lip service of the worst sort, and bears absolutely no resemblance to the sanctions imposed on law-abiding Israelis and their families.

Lack of transparency: The Biden administration has refused to disclose the sources of information upon which the sanctions are based. Furthermore, it refuses to reveal the criteria used to determine what actions are “destabilizing.” The opacity of the process appears to be an attempt to obscure the very problematic sources upon which the Biden administration has been relying, to the exclusion of any other facts or analyses, for quite some time.

Flawed decision-making process based on baked-in political bias: The sanctions imposed to date speak volumes about the shortcomings of a decision-making process marred by unreliability and political bias. For example, sanctions were mistakenly imposed on a young Israeli who has virtually no connection to “the West Bank” or any political or protest activity.

While serving on the front lines as an active combat reservist, his bank account was frozen and his freedom of movement was curtailed – for no reason other than that his name is similar to that of another individual whom the US administration sought to target for political activism of which it disapproves.

It is clear that the US government conducted no due diligence and made no effort to ascertain the identity, not to mention the culpability, of the unknowing victim of sanctions. The mistake, though eventually corrected, points to an almost unfathomable disregard for the rights of law-abiding citizens in an allied democratic country.

Creeping colonialism: Sanctions against Israeli officials?

EO 14115 stipulates that anyone who challenges the current US administration’s declared policy favoring Palestinian statehood in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) is liable to be sanctioned. This is a breathtaking political dictate, both in scope and intent, particularly in light of the recent decision passed by an overwhelming majority of democratically-elected Members of Knesset rejecting Palestinian statehood.

Consider the possibility that any or all members of the government of Israel may be sanctioned at any time, along with local and regional government officials and members of Israel’s judiciary who uphold the law and policy of the government of Israel. Consider the fact that the US government has given itself the authority to sanction officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces – or even entire branches of the IDF, which is presently engaged in a multi-front war for the survival of the Jewish State.

Sanctions are the blunt instrument with which blatant American colonialism is to be enforced. EO 14115 nullifies the institutions of Israeli democracy, tramples due process in Israel’s law enforcement system, overrides Israel’s judicial system, shuts down civil rights and civil society in Israel, and rejects, in deeds if not in words, the notion that Israel is a sovereign, democratic ally that has the right to determine its own foreign and domestic policy in accordance with the democratic principles upon which it was founded and by which it continues to abide.

Sanctions were once reserved as a last-ditch weapon against internationally-designated terrorist or criminal cartel chiefs, organized crime syndicates, hostile dictatorial and oppressive regimes such as Iran, North Korea, and Russia, or against specific actions taken by democratic countries that violate trade or other agreements with the US. Never have individual citizens or the elected government of an allied democratic country been sanctioned for the “crime” of disagreeing with US policy, most certainly not while that ally is engaged in an existential war against precisely the same enemy that would benefit from the policy the US is promulgating.

EO 14115 repeatedly refers to alleged “displacement” of Arab communities due to “settler violence” – but provides no documentation or factual support for any such displacement. In fact, these alleged displacements are the focus of “reports” composed by infamously anti-Zionist nongovernment organizations that enjoy direct and virtually exclusive access to the US government.

THESE SAME organizations are funded by the US, the EU and other foreign governments – the very same governments that have imposed sanctions based on the narrative they have paid to craft and promote. In an overwhelming number of cases, the “villages” that were allegedly displaced are, in fact, illegal outposts created for the sole purpose of provoking confrontation with the IDF and Jewish communities in the vicinity, as part of a larger effort to delegitimize the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria, to cast a shadow of immorality on the IDF, and to besmirch the State of Israel as a whole.

These outposts are the base of operations for foreign agitators, anarchists and pro-Palestinian activists who for years have been provoking confrontations with Israeli civilians and IDF troops off camera – and then documenting the often violent outcomes of these provocations. Their photographic “evidence” of settler violence is most often documentation of self-defense by Israelis who have come under attack.

Despite the findings of military, police, and judicial inquiries and adjudication in which Israelis’ claims of self-defense have been proven, this narrative spun by anti-Zionist, EU-funded NGOs directly led to the imposition of sanctions. The instigators of conflict and terrorism are the sources of information upon which the US administration and other foreign governments rely when they label “violent settlers destabilizing the West Bank.”

To date, the Israeli government has not mounted any substantive response to the imposition of sanctions, nor has it acted to protect its citizens or to defend its own sovereignty and democracy. Without a doubt, the attention and resources of the Israeli government and parliament are stretched tremendously thin at present, but the threat posed by the sanctions regime is no less than existential. Recognizing the magnitude of the challenge, the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice committee convened in early August to discuss the issues surrounding the sanctions and the ways in which relevant government ministries must respond to these unprecedented measures.

The ambassadors of countries that have jumped on the sanctions bandwagon were invited as well, but chose not to attend; they apparently preferred not to answer questions regarding the sources of information used to justify sanctions, the due diligence they conduct before imposing sanctions, or the steps they are or are not taking against perpetrators, organizers and supporters of Arab violence and terrorism, the true forces of destabilization in this region and beyond. The Israeli government owes it to itself and to its citizens to demand answers to these questions, as a first step toward fighting back against the violation of civil rights and national sovereignty.

The writer is director of the International Division of Regavim, an Israeli civil society organization dedicated to the protection of Israel’s national resources and sovereignty. Regavim recently petitioned the US Federal Court to strike down EO 14115.