A Christian group supportive of Israel has taken legal action against the Biden administration in a federal court, accusing the government of violating the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by imposing sanctions on Israel that target protected speech and assembly. The lawsuit is based on allegations that these sanctions unfairly target certain individuals and groups without evidence of criminal conduct or violence.
As Breitbart News reports, the Biden administration has imposed sanctions on Israeli citizens for supposed “extremism,” despite none of them being convicted of a crime. One example of this is the protest movement Tzav 9, which opposes the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza while Hamas still holds Israeli hostages and misappropriates aid. Tzav 9 has used common protest tactics such as blocking roads.
These sanctions have often been implemented at the direction of radical anti-Israel groups, including one founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi, that have lobbied the Biden administration with unconfirmed and uncorroborated reports. International law expert Eugene Kontorovich, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of a Christian group called Texans for Israel and American Jews living in Israel, explained in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
The first part of Mr. Biden’s executive order permits the imposition of sanctions on anyone the administration regards as involved in undermining “peace” or “stability” in the West Bank—even if there is no allegation of criminal conduct or violence. This directive is far-reaching because the administration deems Jews merely living in the West Bank—and certainly building or buying homes there—as “obstacles to peace.” An internal administration memo described the sanctions as targeted at those who “disrupt or prevent efforts to achieve a two-state solution.” The administration also views Jews visiting their holy sites as “provocative.
Last month, the U.S. froze the bank accounts of Reut Ben Haim, a mother of eight and one of the founders of Tzav 9. Her offense? She has been involved in demonstrations against the U.S.-backed provision of supplies to Gaza, much of which is usurped by Hamas. Tzav 9 protests involve blocking traffic (a common tactic used in protest movements, including those supporting Hamas in America), and it has categorically denounced violence. Indeed, senior U.S. officials have described the group as engaged in “protest activity.
Vice President Kamala Harris raised money to bail out demonstrators during the sometimes-violent Black Lives Matter protests that occurred in Minnesota in the summer of 2020. Yet members of Tzav 9 who protest against material support to Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization, find themselves in the Biden administration’s crosshairs.
The sanctions have furthered the agenda of the broader “boycott, divestment, sanctions” (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel. On one occasion, the sanctions targeted an uninvolved man with the same name as one of the people the Biden administration sought to punish for so-called “extremist” activity. Israel has protested the sanctions.
European nations and Canada have also followed the Biden administration’s example, and have imposed sanctions on Israelis for supposed “extremism.” Similar sanctions are rarely applied to Palestinians, who commit violence against Israelis far more often than the opposite, by several orders of magnitude.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reassured leaders of Israel’s settlement movement in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) that he was doing everything he could to reverse sanctions imposed on them by the U.S. and other countries recently.