President Biden on Thursday ordered sweeping financial and travel sanctions on Israeli settlers accused of violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, a forceful gesture aimed in part at Arab American voters in the United States who have expressed fury over the president’s endorsement. to Israel’s war in Gaza.
Biden authorized the sanctions with an executive order that goes beyond a directive issued in December by the State Department, which imposed visa bans on dozens of Israeli settlers who have committed violence in the West Bank. Sanctions will be imposed initially about four Israelis, who will be isolated from the US financial system and access to any US assets or property. They will also be prevented from traveling to the United States or engaging in any trade with persons in the United States.
For Biden, the order had a dual purpose: It was a stern diplomatic warning to Israel’s government at a time when the United States is pressuring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to moderate. But he also sent a message to Arab Americans, a key part of the political coalition he needs to be re-elected, that he is serious about using U.S. power on behalf of the Palestinians.
The White House announced the sanctions just hours before Biden held a campaign event in Michigan, a critical battleground state that has a large Arab-American population and has been the site of numerous protests over the war in Gaza.
The executive order comes after years of American frustration with Israeli settlers, whom they see as a source of violence and instability and a threat to a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. And it comes as Biden faces growing criticism over US support for Israel’s war in Gaza, including from members of his own party. U.S. officials fear that a recent surge in attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank could trigger even greater violence, worsening an already flammable situation.
“This violence represents a serious threat to peace, security and stability in the West Bank, Israel and the Middle East region, and threatens the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States,” said Jake Sullivan, US security adviser. national of the president. .
Israel’s war against Hamas is taking place in the 141-square-mile Gaza Strip, home to some two million Palestinians. But there are also deep tensions in the West Bank, a much larger area that Israel has occupied since 1967. It is home to more than 2.5 million Palestinians and has long been at the center of the territorial dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.
Palestinians and many analysts say Israel’s government has allowed settlers, often heavily armed, to operate with impunity inside the West Bank. A United Nations report said eight Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank by Israeli settlers since Hamas fighters from Gaza invaded Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people.
Netanyahu’s office responded to the sanctions by saying that the “vast majority” of Israeli settlers in the West Bank were “law-abiding citizens.” Israel “acts against lawbreakers everywhere, so there is no need for exceptional measures in this matter,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Before leaving for Michigan, Biden spoke about what he called “the trauma, death and destruction in Israel and Gaza.” In her speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, she pledged to work for the release of the hostages held by Hamas and for the lives of Palestinians.
“We not only pray for peace, but we are actively working for the peace, security and dignity of the Israeli people and the Palestinian people,” he told the group of legislators and religious leaders present at the event.
Michigan is vital to Biden’s campaign for a second term. In 2020, he won the state over former President Donald J. Trump by 154,188 votes out of nearly 5.5 million cast that year. On Thursday, the president stopped by a black-owned restaurant outside Detroit and met with about 100 members of the United Auto Workers, the union that had recently endorsed him.
Against a backdrop of signs like “UAW 4 JOE” and “Unions heart Joe,” the president credited the union movement for having the “strongest economy in the whole damn world” and dismissed skeptics who had predicted that “ China is going to eat our lunch. Well, guess what, man? “We don’t know that well.”
Lauren Hitt, a campaign spokeswoman, said Biden was eager to thank Shawn Fain, the union president, who was at the event, and draw a contrast with former President Donald J. Trump in a state where union workers could decide . Who wins this year’s presidential election.
“He will continue to fight Donald Trump’s historically anti-working class agenda,” he said, promising that Biden would “make a lot of trips to Michigan” in the coming months.
Michigan is home to several hundred thousand Arab Americans, most of whom live in the Detroit area. Those areas voted by wide margins for Biden in 2020.
But since the Hamas attacks and Israel’s response in Gaza, polls show the president is losing support among Arab Americans. A survey at the end of last year showed that Biden’s support among that population fell from 59 percent to 17 percent, a decline of more than 40 percentage points since the last election.
Biden has been hounded by people protesting his support for Israel at nearly every campaign event in recent weeks. At a third stop Thursday, at the Simple Palate restaurant, he encountered several protesters waving Palestinian flags and shouting into a megaphone: “Genocide Joe” and “How many children have you killed today?”
Osama A. Siblani, editor of the Dearborn-based Arab American News, said Thursday that Biden’s standing among Arab voters was lower than ever and that sanctions would do nothing to change that.
“We’ve given up on him doing anything,” Siblani said, adding that he had been surprised by the White House’s lack of specificity about the president’s agenda in Michigan, which he said seemed like an attempt to head off potential protests.
Before Biden’s trip on Thursday, the White House and the president’s re-election campaign had provided only scant information about where he was headed.
“If the community is not going to be able to protest your visit,” Siblani said, “we will give you the answer on February 27,” referring to the date of Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary.
A Biden campaign spokeswoman disputed the idea that the campaign was being secretive, noting that Biden often appears at small events that are not announced in advance.
Protesters believe Biden has not done enough to prevent the killing of thousands of Palestinians by Israel. Gaza authorities say at least 26,000 people have been killed during Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.
The officials said the sanctions would not be imposed against American citizens living in Israel. State Department officials identified the four Israelis named in Thursday’s sanctions as David Chai Chasdai, Einan Tanjil, Shalom Zicherman and Yinon Levi.
In a news release Thursday, officials said Chasdai had “initiated and led a mutiny” that resulted in the death of a Palestinian civilian and assaulted other Palestinians. They said Mr. Tanjil had been “involved in attacking Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists by attacking them with stones and clubs.”
Zicherman “assaulted Israeli activists and their vehicles in the West Bank,” the officials said, citing video evidence. They said Levi had threatened “violence if they did not abandon their homes, burn their fields and destroy his property” in the West Bank.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a statement that the sanctions are designed in part to pressure Israel’s government to prevent the kind of violence its citizens use against Palestinians living in the West Bank.
“The United States has consistently opposed actions that undermine stability in the West Bank and the prospects for peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians,” Blinken said. “Israel must do more to stop violence against civilians in the West Bank and hold those responsible accountable.”
mitch smith contributed reporting from Harrison Township, Michigan, and Zach Montague from Washington.
