WASHINGTON – Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Reps. Jamie Raskin and Kweisi Mfume are among nearly 90 congressional Democrats urging President Joe Biden to sanction two top Israeli government officials.
“With radical officials in the Netanyahu government continuing to enable settler violence and enact annexationist policies, it is clear that further sanctions are urgently needed,” said the October letter, made public Thursday.
Signed by 71 House members and 17 senators, the letter asks Biden to sanction Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Givir.
The lawmakers accused the men of destabilizing the West Bank by promoting settler violence, weakening the Palestinian Authority and facilitating the annexation of the West Bank by Israel.
“Government leaders instigating violence must be subject to U.S. sanctions; those in leadership responsible for the lawlessness must be held to account,” the letter said.
The Democrats sent the letter before the presidential election, on Oct. 29, and made the letter public after not receiving a response from the White House.
The letter came after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that he was considering sanctioning the two men.
“The administration has been sanctioning officials for inflaming tensions and violence in the West Bank, and this would be completely consistent with the policy that the administration has been engaged in,” Raskin told CNS Thursday.
Biden signed an executive order in February that allows any person designated by the secretary of state as responsible for or complicit in actions that “threaten the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank” to be sanctioned.
The administration has since sanctioned several Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have committed violence against Palestinians, their respective outposts, and the Israeli extremist group Tzav 9, which had blocked humanitarian aid into Gaza. Under the same executive order, the administration sanctioned the Palestinian militant group known as Lions’ Den.
The lawmakers’ letter also urged the administration to sanction other people and entities that meet the criteria laid out by Biden’s earlier executive order.
One such entity explicitly mentioned in the letter was Amana, an organization that the lawmakers said had played a key role in establishing Israeli West Bank settlements. Regavim, a non-governmental organization that attempts to block Palestinian construction in the West Bank, was also mentioned in the letter as an entity that should be sanctioned.
The October letter followed a May letter — signed by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, and others and sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinker and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen – that urged the administration to target all bad actors equally and to enforce sanctions already in place.