As Donald J. Trump nominates staunch supporters of Israel to key positions, advocacy groups are taking aim at the departing administration’s policies.
The Biden administration this week imposed sanctions on more groups and individuals it accuses of having ties to Israeli settlers inciting violence in the occupied West Bank, a last-ditch show of disapproval of Israelis’ annexation of land there before U.S. policy on the issue most likely swings the other way under the next administration.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump returns to the White House next year, he could easily revoke the February executive order authorizing the sanctions or, even, some pro-settlement activists hope, use the order to go after Palestinian organizations instead.
Texans for Israel, a Christian Zionist group, and several other settler supporters and organizations this month renewed a challenge to President Biden’s order in federal court, arguing that it was being applied unconstitutionally, targeting Jewish settlers and violating the rights of Americans exercising freedom of religion and speech in support of them.
The case highlights the growing international controversy over West Bank settlement amid the war in the Gaza Strip and the great expectations of the settler movement and its supporters of another Trump presidency.
Israel seized control of the West Bank from Jordan in a war in 1967, and Israeli civilians have since settled there with both the tacit and the explicit approval of the Israeli government, living under Israeli civil law while their Palestinian neighbors are subject to Israeli military law. Expanding Israel’s hold over the West Bank is a stated goal of many ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
The international community largely views the Israeli settlements as illegal, and Palestinians have long argued that they are a creeping annexation that turns land needed for any independent Palestinian state into an unmanageable patchwork.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
