WASHINGTON — US President Joe Biden’s administration will not sanction far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich before the end of his term, two US officials told The Times of Israel this week.
Washington had considered what would have been an unprecedented move on and off over the past year through an executive order signed by Biden in February that empowered the administration to issue sanctions against individuals and entities destabilizing the West Bank
Seventeen individuals and 16 entities have since been designated in eight batches of sanctions, and the administration is planning one final batch before January 20, the US officials said.
Ben Gvir and Smotrich were vetted for potential designations, amid mounting revelations that Ben Gvir had directed the police force he oversees as national security minister not to probe intensifying settler violence, and that Smotrich had used his positions as finance minister and minister in the Defense Ministry in charge of settler affairs to severely weaken the Palestinian Authority while allowing illegal Israeli outposts to mushroom across the West Bank.
Proponents of sanctioning Ben Gvir and Smotrich argued that a strong case could be made that their actions fell within the scope of the executive order. They pushed to designate the pair as the security situation in the West Bank deteriorated, harming prospects for a two-state solution along with US interests in the region more broadly, the US officials recalled.
In August, the US designated an extremist organization founded by one of Ben Gvir’s closest allies, Benzi Gopstein, which suggested that the Biden administration was closing in on the minister himself. Washington also considered sanctioning the pro-settlement Regavim group, which was co-founded by Smotrich and has ties to dozens of illegal outposts throughout the West Bank, one of the US officials said.
Biden criticized Ben Gvir personally, his White House repeatedly called out Smotrich, and the administration maintained an effective boycott of the pair — a policy that US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and several other key figures opposed, arguing that it robbed Washington of its ability to influence Smotrich in particular, said the US official.
Ultimately, Lew and others were outvoted by other Biden aides — namely Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer, who argued that meeting with Smotrich, and even more so with Ben Gvir, legitimized their views and policies, said the US official.
Designating the two ministers, however, was another matter.
From the get-go, Biden chafed at the idea, deeming the sanctioning of ministers from a democratic ally as a step too far, the US official explained.
The idea was shelved as last month’s presidential election neared, given the potential for political fallout, and once Vice President Kamala Harris lost, prospects for the move decreased further, given the understanding that it would surely be quickly reversed by the next administration of Donald Trump, the US official explained.
Nearly 90 Congressional Democrats penned a letter to Biden after the election urging the president to sanction Ben Gvir and Smotrich for “promoting settler violence.” But the signatories were many of the same progressive Democrats who have taken a harder line on Israel than the White House only to have their recommendations repeatedly dismissed.
Instead, the administration last month designated Amana, the main development arm of the settlement movement responsible for bankrolling the establishment of numerous West Bank settlements and illegal settlement outposts.
That designation is just as reversible as the other 32, but the administration viewed it as important in setting a precedent that can have a more tangible — “and less politically tainted” — impact in advancing prospects for a two-state solution, the US official argued.
Asked for comment on the matter, a State Department spokesperson declined to do so, saying that the administration does not “preview sanctions.”