In a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, over 50 members of the Knesset demanded that he raise the issue of US sanctions against settlers during his speech in the US Congress, scheduled for Wednesday.
The MKs, led by Land of Israel Caucus heads Yuli Edelstein (Likud), Simcha Rothman (Religious Zionist Party), and Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit), also recommended that the prime minister take with him on his trip leaders of West Bank settlements to “express the government’s dedication to the homeland and the unbreakable tie between the government and settlement [movement].”According to reports published on Sunday, the prime minister planned to meet with mayors and local and regional council heads from Judea and Samaria on Sunday evening, possibly because of the letter. However, the meeting was later cancelled. The mayors and local and regional council heads said that they would meet regardless in order to "weigh their next steps."The MKs wrote that the economic sanctions against Israeli civilians and organizations expressed “blatant harm to Israeli sovereignty, to the longtime friendship between the two states, to the values of democracy, which the US has always championed, and, of course, to the global struggle against terror, as not even one sanction was applied to members of Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, who are involved neck-deep in terrorism."
The MKs added that they viewed with “further severity” reports that the US administration intended to apply sanctions to elected Israeli officials. The MKs were responding to reports that emerged on Saturday that the US intended to sanction far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich over their actions in support of the settlement movement.
The letter received 55 signatures of Knesset members – nearly half of the 120-member Knesset. It included members of all coalition parties, as well as the United Right opposition party.
Willing to pay the price on a personal level
Smotrich said, in response to the report on Sunday, that applying sanctions to him would be a “miserable decision that stems from the internal political needs of those who presume to lead the largest democracy in the world while acting undemocratically against a brave partner and the only democracy in the Middle East.”He added that, on a personal level, he was willing to “pay any price,” but on a national level, “applying sanctions to an elected official and senior government minister due to his democratic and national actions [carried out], with the authority and permission of his constituents, is a critical blow to Israeli sovereignty and the relations between the states, and will have difficult consequences in many fields.”The National Security Council discussed sanctioning Smotrich and Ben-Giver at the White House last week. The Biden administration holds the two responsible for undermining security in Judea and Samaria and leading the government’s policies there, according to Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, who cited three senior American officials on the matter.The report indicated that the Biden administration was frustrated with the Israeli government’s policies of expanding Jewish settlements and weakening the Palestinian Authority, noting that some ministers were openly associated with extremist settler groups.The administration also said that the settlements were inconsistent with international law, Ravid noted.The Knesset’s decision to advance the planning and construction of an additional 5,000 housing units in settlements and to legalize five outposts led to the convening of the meeting at the White House.
Maariv contributed to this report.