[[link removed]]

THE FIRST STEP TOWARD DISINTEGRATING ISRAEL’S SETTLER MACHINE  
[[link removed]]


 

Ori Kol
March 19, 2024
972 Magazine
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Despite their narrow focus, recent international sanctions against
settlers are laying the foundations to turn verbal condemnations into
tangible action. _

Israeli settlers attempt to establish a new outpost in response to
the killing of two settlers the night before, near the illegal
settlement of Itamar, occupied West Bank, October 2, 2015, photo:
Yotam Ronen/Activestills

 

“Look at these bastards,” the right-wing Israeli journalist and
provocateur Yinon Magal tweeted
[[link removed]] on Feb.
18. “They blocked the personal account and the access to money (!!)
of Moshe Sharvit the hero, brother of Harel RIP who died in Gaza, and
a Zionist who’s watching over Israeli land in the Jordan Valley. The
world is upside down.”

Moshe Sharvit is one of dozens of Israeli settlers to have been hit
with international sanctions in recent weeks for their involvement
in violent acts
[[link removed]] against Palestinians
and left-wing Israeli activists in the occupied West Bank. His record
speaks for itself: in 2020, Sharvit established an outpost
[[link removed]] (“Moshe’s
Farm”) in the Jordan Valley, a vast stretch of the West Bank under
full Israeli military control that is home to tens of thousands of
Palestinians. He frequently harasses
[[link removed]] Palestinian
farmers and shepherds while they work on their land, and, since
October 7, he has been busy forcibly evicting
[[link removed]] Palestinian
families from the rural community of Ein Shibli. 

As a result, Sharvit has had the misfortune of being blacklisted by
both the United States and the United Kingdom, amid a wave of
first-of-their-kind measures imposed by Western governments against
Israeli settlers. U.S. President Joe Biden’s Feb. 1 executive order
set the stage, announcing sanctions against four settlers
[[link removed]].
The U.K. [[link removed]], France
[[link removed]], Spain
[[link removed]], Belgium
[[link removed]],
and New Zealand
[[link removed](Reuters),Palestinians%20in%20the%20West%20Bank.] followed
suit with variations on Biden’s list, while Canada
[[link removed](Reuters),took%20similar%20action%20last%20week.] and
the EU are set to impose
[[link removed]] sanctions
of their own. Last week, the U.S. announced
[[link removed]] additional
measures against two West Bank outposts and three more settlers.

The sanctions, which have so far mostly targeted lower-rung activists,
are two-pronged. First, they amount to a ban on entering the
sanctioning country; and second, they effectively prevent the targeted
settlers from accessing the mainstream financial world, barring them
from using most international banking services, including Israeli
ones.

[Israeli bulldozers expand the West Bank Jewish-only settlement of
Nofei Nehemia in the Salfit District on private Palestinian land,
which was expropriated by Israel and declared "state" (public) land,
according to the owners, August 13, 2020. (Ahmad
Al-Bazz/Activestills)]
[[link removed]]
Israeli bulldozers expand the West Bank Jewish-only settlement of
Nofei Nehemia in the Salfit District on private Palestinian land,
which was expropriated by Israel and declared
Israeli bulldozers expand the West Bank Jewish-only settlement of
Nofei Nehemia in the Salfit District on private Palestinian land,
which was expropriated by Israel and declared “state” (public)
land, according to the owners, August 13, 2020. (Ahmad
Al-Bazz/Activestills)

Despite their relatively narrow focus, the language of the sanctions
and the timing of their implementation imply that more consequential
action is likely to follow. As a result, the whole settler machine
could find itself facing a level of duress that it has not previously
known. 

Room for interpretation

Biden’s executive order
[[link removed]] leaves
much room for further action, with its sights set on individuals
involved in “directing, enacting, implementing, enforcing, or
failing to enforce policies … that threaten the peace, security, or
stability of the West Bank.” The wording here is such that the
restrictions could easily be expanded to encompass far more
organizations and individuals than those named so far. After all, the
settlement enterprise has always been a joint project of Israel’s
government, army, and legal system working in unison.

With the State Department hinting at more forceful measures ahead,
sanctions could soon implicate vast swathes of the Israeli state,
including ministers, municipal bodies, and high-ranking security
officials. They could also threaten the settler movement’s funding
sources — including tax-exempt donations
[[link removed]] from
the U.S., which are a lifeline
[[link removed]] for
even the more “mainstream”
[[link removed]] settlements. 

Moreover, Israeli banks — which have long operated in the West Bank
and supported settler projects — could be forced to make sure that
they aren’t handling money used by sanctioned settlers or outposts.
If so, the relationship between the country’s largest financial
institutions and one of the most powerful groups in the Israeli body
politic would shatter, with unknown implications.

The latest U.S. measures targeting two outposts — Moshe’s Farm and
Zvi’s Farm — leave further room for interpretation. How will the
sanctions affect the companies working with these outposts? The
suppliers who deliver materials to the farms? The NGOs that send
volunteers to help guard them? These questions will likely be answered
in the coming weeks and months.

[Israeli settlers build a structure in the outpost of Homesh,
occupied West Bank, May 29, 2023. (Flash90)]
[[link removed]]
Israeli settlers build a structure in the outpost of Homesh, occupied
West Bank, May 29, 2023. (Flash90)
Israeli settlers build a structure in the outpost of Homesh, occupied
West Bank, May 29, 2023. (Flash90)

Another part of the state apparatus that could be implicated are West
Bank regional councils. As Peace Now revealed
[[link removed]] last
month, one of the sanctioned settlers, Yinon Levy, received money from
the Har Hevron Regional Council in order to finance the construction
of his illegal outpost. 

Although their jurisdiction is relatively limited, regional councils
have huge sway over the activities of the army, police, and
politicians inside the occupied territory. For years, they have been
run by extreme right-wing forces that control the day-to-day
operations of building and maintaining illegal outposts. This
relationship to more official-looking state bodies is invaluable for
outposts, with regional councils helping them connect to basic
services like electricity and water, and assisting with other
administrative issues. In some cases, outposts are technically listed
as expansions or new neighborhoods of established settlements in order
to legitimize their status. 

‘It starts with Yinon Levy, and continues on to senior army
officers’

The pushback from senior Israeli politicians against the sanctions
seems to indicate that the settler movement is feeling the pressure.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — himself a West Bank
settler, living in Kiryat Arba near Hebron — responded
[[link removed]] with outrage to Biden’s
announcement, demanding that Israeli banks reinstate the sanctioned
settlers’ funds. “Restricting the bank accounts of settlers
without explanation … is crossing a red line,” he said, adding:
“I call on the responsible parties in Israel to act immediately to
return the bank accounts that were blocked.”

Meanwhile, Finance Minister and West Bank overlord
[[link removed]] Bezalel
Smotrich — who described
[[link removed]] Biden’s
executive order as “part of a false and antisemitic campaign led by
BDS elements,” and who is also a settler living in Kedumim near
Nablus — is reportedly working to circumvent the sanctions. He told
[[link removed]] a meeting of his
party that he was “in conversation with the Supervisor of Banks
[[link removed]],”
vowing that “such a reality must not be allowed.” (Israel’s
central bank, the Bank of Israel, has stated
[[link removed]] that
it will comply with international sanctions.) Smotrich is
also threatening
[[link removed]] to
freeze the money flowing from Israeli banks to the Palestinian
Authority in the West Bank, which could lead to the latter’s
collapse.

[Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich attend a plenum session in the
Israeli Knesset, Jerusalem, December 29, 2022. (Yonatan
Sindel/Flash90)]
[[link removed]] Itamar
Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich attend a plenum session in the Israeli
Knesset, Jerusalem, December 29, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich attend a plenum session in the
Israeli Knesset, Jerusalem, December 29, 2022. (Yonatan
Sindel/Flash90)

It should be noted that, in going to bat for the targeted settlers,
Smotrich is potentially implicating himself
[[link removed]] in
the sanctions by virtue of having “materially assisted … [a]
person blocked pursuant to this order.” U.S. officials have
reportedly already considered
[[link removed]] sanctioning
both Smotrich and Ben Gvir.

These ministers are not alone in understanding the risks that the
sanctions could pose to the settlement enterprise. At a Knesset
hearing
[[link removed]] on
Feb. 14, Likud’s Moshe Passal — who attended
[[link removed]] the
infamous Gaza resettlement conference
[[link removed]] in
late January — expressed a popular concern: “If a solution is not
found now, then in the future sanctions may be imposed on all the
settlers in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank].” Referring
sarcastically to the depopulated Palestinian village on whose lands
Tel Aviv University was established after the 1948 Nakba, Passal
added: “Eventually, the settlers of Shaykh Muwannis will also be
involved in this story.” 

Zvi Sukkot, a member of Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party,
similarly warned: “It starts with Yinon Levy [one of the sanctioned
settlers], and it continues on to senior officers in the army and
council heads.” Sukkot has personal reason for concern: he was once
detained
[[link removed]] as
a suspect in an arson attack on a mosque in the northern West Bank,
and as the current chair of the Knesset’s West Bank subcommittee, he
presides over the system of impunity that allows violent settlers to
go unprosecuted.

‘Aiding and abetting a crime’

To take down the settler movement, you need to shut off its funding.
According to Shabtay Bendet, the former head of Peace Now’s
Settlement Watch team, the settlement enterprise is fundamentally
undergirded by financial considerations. 

“The money goes to development and construction,” Bendet told
+972. “When you arrive at a pristine place, you have to excavate a
road and build infrastructure. From earthworks to castings, arranging
caravans, building from wood or other materials — everything costs
money.”

[The Tunnel Road, as seen from Jerusalem's Gilo settlement, East
Jerusalem, December 16, 2020. (Oren Ziv)]
[[link removed]]
The Tunnel Road, as seen from the Gilo settlement, East Jerusalem,
December 16, 2020. (Oren Ziv)
The Tunnel Road, as seen from the Gilo settlement, East Jerusalem,
December 16, 2020. (Oren Ziv)

Historically, settlers received funding through Israeli government
ministries and local authorities, and with the help of friendly
government officials and ministers. But in recent years, the
settlement movement has diversified its funding sources.

Settlers have begun courting large donors from abroad, who contribute
funds through a series of obscure and anonymous bodies that funnel the
money to West Bank hilltops. The Russian-Israeli oligarch Roman
Abramovich, for example, reportedly donated
[[link removed]] over
$74 million to a settler group operating in East Jerusalem. American
groups, many of them Evangelical Christian, have donated
[[link removed]] hundreds
of millions of dollars to settler groups.

More recently, though, settlers have come to rely on an unlikely
source: crowdfunding. Take the website Charidy
[[link removed]]. Established in 2013 by followers of the
ultra-Orthodox movement Chabad, it is used by a variety of groups to
raise funds. For example, Agudat Israel, a Haredi political party and
movement, has raised over $10 million
[[link removed]] on the site, and many yeshiva
(religious school) fundraisers
[[link removed]] get millions
[[link removed]] of dollars
[[link removed]] combined
[[link removed]]. 

But Charidy is also avidly used by far-right groups. Many “Torah
nuclei
[[link removed]]”
— religious-nationalist groups that seek to Judaize so-called
“mixed cities [[link removed]]” within
Israel — are raising millions through the website. “The Jewish
Voice,” the news site of the hilltop youth, where Jewish extremism
is often lauded, has raised
[[link removed]] over NIS 800,000
(around $220,000) through Charidy. And the crowdfunding site is also
used to raise money for illegal outposts.

One of the first settlers sanctioned by the U.S., David Chai Chasdai,
even tried using Charidy
[[link removed]] to
fundraise after his bank account was frozen. But in compliance with
the sanctions, the site took down his page.

[Israeli settlers hurl stones at Palestinians during the annual
harvest season near the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar in the West Bank
on October 7, 2020. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)]
[[link removed]]
Israeli settlers hurl stones at Palestinians during the annual harvest
season near the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar in the West Bank on
October 7, 2020. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)
Israeli settlers hurl stones at Palestinians during the annual harvest
season near the Israeli settlement of Yitzhar in the West Bank on
October 7, 2020. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Understanding this financial operation is key to understanding the
settler movement as a whole, and why scaled-up sanctions could pose
such a threat. For Alon Sapir, a human rights lawyer who has filed
court petitions against the funding of outposts, this web could
implicate vast swathes of Israeli society. 

“Building an outpost is committing a criminal offense,” Sapir
explained. “Raising money for this activity — at the very least
— is aiding and abetting a crime.”

Overdue questions

The sanctions that have already been imposed, and those that may yet
come, present a unique challenge to Israel. For the past 20 years, the
state’s strategy in the face of international pressure has been to
refuse to differentiate between the pre-1967 borders and the occupied
territories. Calls to boycott settlements have been smeared by Israeli
hasbara (public relations or propaganda) as a form of BDS, even when
such calls are made by liberal Zionist groups operating within Israel.

Successive Netanyahu governments have created new ways of channeling
money to the settlement project by tying it almost inexorably to core
state operations. But with international sanctions specifically
targeting violent actors in the West Bank, a critical new question may
arise: can the state work with people and businesses that are
blacklisted by the mainstream financial system, or that are soon to
be? Can state actors themselves, such as the military commanders who
send soldiers to expel Palestinian communities, be cut off?

_Ori Kol [[link removed]] is a campaigner
based in London._

+972 Magazine is an independent, online, nonprofit magazine run by a
group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists. Founded in 2010, our
mission is to provide in-depth reporting, analysis, and opinions from
the ground in Israel-Palestine. The name of the site is derived from
the telephone country code that can be used to dial throughout
Israel-Palestine.

Our core values are a commitment to equity, justice, and freedom of
information. We believe in accurate and fair journalism that
spotlights the people and communities working to oppose occupation and
apartheid, and that showcases perspectives often overlooked or
marginalized in mainstream narratives.

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]