A number of Israeli settlers culpable for violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank will be banned from entering the United States, the State Department announced Tuesday.
“Today, the State Department is implementing a new visa restriction policy targeting individuals believed to have been involved in undermining peace, security, or stability in the West Bank, including through committing acts of violence or taking other actions that unduly restrict civilians’ access to essential services and basic necessities,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday. “Immediate family members of such persons also may be subject to these restrictions.”
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U.S. officials created that blacklist after weeks of escalating violence in the West Bank, the Palestinian-populated territory that Israel has occupied since 1967. Israeli far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir has taken an assertive approach to Israeli policy in the disputed district over the year since his rise to power in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, with flaring violence in the weeks since the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack that ignited Israel’s war in Gaza.
“We expect, ultimately, for this action to impact dozens of individuals and potentially their family members,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, reportedly has irritated Netanyahu by downplaying the violence as mere “graffiti.” Yet United Nations humanitarian officials have “recorded 171 settler attacks against Palestinians” since Oct. 7, resulting in “more than 820 Palestinians” fleeing their homes as of Nov. 1.
“We will continue to seek accountability for all acts of violence against civilians in the West Bank, regardless of the perpetrator or the victim,” Blinken said. “We also continue to engage with the Israeli leadership to make clear that Israel must take additional measures to protect Palestinian civilians from extremist attacks.”
Ben-Gvir has characterized the tensions in the West Bank as a matter of innocent Israelis facing violence from Palestinian terrorists.
“My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria, is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs,” Ben-Gvir said in August. “The right of me and my fellow Jews to travel and return home safely on the roads of Judea and Samaria outweighs the right of terrorists who throw stones at us and kill us.”
The surge in settler violence has worsened a security situation already fraught with the potential for violence, as Israeli forces have conducted a series of raids against Hamas leaders in the West Bank.
“I think that the Israeli government, under normal circumstances, would be the better authority to mete out punishment,” said Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The problem is that the Shin Bet and the IDF are operating every night … the Israelis have their hands full. This battle against Hamas, it’s not just in the Gaza Strip. There is an ongoing battle in other places, and the West Bank is one of them.”
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Blinken’s team argued that the visa restrictions — reportedly the first targeting Israeli settlers "since the Clinton administration," as Axios put it — intended to mitigate the risk of a larger conflict erupting in the West Bank.
“We unequivocally condemn attacks by violent Israeli extremists against Palestinians and those by violent Palestinian extremists against Israelis,” Miller said. “These acts threaten West Bank stability in the immediate term, and take us further away from a future in which Palestinians and Israelis both can live in peace and security in two states.”