Courtesy of JTA. Photo credit: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images
Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of Israel’s Otzma Yehudit party, and Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party, attend a rally with supporters in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, Oct 26, 2022
(JTA) — Close to 90 Democrats in Congress, including eight Jewish officials, are calling on President Joe Biden to use his lame-duck period to sanction two far-right Israeli ministers.
Both ministers have pushed for Israeli annexation of part or all of the West Bank, a policy that the incoming Donald Trump administration may support.
The letter sent Thursday, spearheaded by top Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Senate, named Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as “driving policies that promote settler violence, weaken the Palestinian Authority, facilitate de facto and de jure annexation, and destabilize the West Bank.”
Biden has sanctioned individual settlers and settler groups who are accused of violence, itself a striking statement of opposition to Israel’s West Bank policies, but has so far held back from going after cabinet officials. The letter urges the president to take that step.
“Government leaders instigating violence must be subject to U.S. sanctions,” said the letter, spearheaded by, among others, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democratic appropriator who, this year, received the endorsement of a PAC affiliated with the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the number-two Democrat in the Senate.
“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,” the letter signed by 88 Democrats said.
It’s not clear whether Biden would use the lame-duck period, which lasts until President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, to ramp up pressure on Israel. Past presidents have seized upon that span of time to push through policies that they otherwise might have abjured because of electoral consequences.
During President Barack Obama’s lame-duck period in 2016, then-Vice President Biden sought to dissuade Obama from allowing through a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlements. Biden was unsuccessful; the resolution passed.
If Biden did sanction Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, Trump would be able to rescind the sanctions as soon as he assumes office, but sanctioning the ministers even for two months would attach to them the stigma of being banned from entering the United States for a short period.
It would also be a shot across the bow by Democrats against any attempt by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seize Trump’s presidency as an opportunity to take steps no Democratic president would encourage. Smotrich, expressly noting Trump’s election, is already advancing plans for annexation. Mike Huckabee, whom Trump has chosen to be the ambassador to Israel, also supports annexation.
In addition, the letter noted that Ben-Gvir has sought to provide firearms to individual settlers and that under his watch, police have failed to stop right-wing groups from obstructing aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza besieged by Israel’s war with Hamas.
Of Smotrich, the letter said: “As a key leader of the settler movement he has also used toxic and inciting rhetoric in public and private, shielded instigators in the West Bank from accountability, called for a Palestinian town to be ‘wiped out,’ and repeatedly voiced his public support for annexing the West Bank.”
The Jewish lawmakers signing onto the letter include Reps. Becca Balint of Vermont; Jerry Nadler of New York; Steve Cohen of Tennessee; Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island; Jan Schakowsky of Illinois; and Sara Jacobs of California; in addition, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Brian Schatz of Hawaii signed.
