Senate Chairs Call for More Sanctions Against West Bank Violence
Three Senate committee chairs urged the Biden administration last week to continue enforcing a new executive order that allows the U.S. to sanction "foreign persons" responsible for increased violence in the West Bank (see 2402010053).
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“We strongly support the actions the administration has taken under” the Feb. 1 executive order, Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin, D-Md., Armed Services Chair Jack Reed, D-R.I., and Intelligence Chair Mark Warner, D-Va., wrote in a May 15 letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. “Your actions against those who are undermining security in the West Bank make clear that the U.S. position remains support” for a negotiated two-state solution.
The senators said the three rounds of sanctions issued so far under the order are already “having a significant impact, as Israeli private banks are proactively working to comply and avoid losing access to the U.S. financial system." The administration, the lawmakers added, "should not hesitate to take swift action against entities that try to circumvent these sanctions.”
The letter also says the administration should “continue to increase efforts to target all actors complicit in this violence, including private entities involved in materially supporting violent acts or the forcible displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank, such as private construction companies and charitable organizations.”
The executive order targets not only those who commit violence but also entities and people who have "materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, any person blocked pursuant to this order.”
Nine Republican senators urged Biden in late February to rescind the order, saying it has "no defined standards for determining when sanctions are warranted" and appears to allow the State Department to "punish arbitrarily any Israeli it wants" (see 2403010065).