Tablet Mag: How ‘Settler Violence’ Became a Tool for Sanctioning Jews
- 3 days ago
- 1 min read
“Settler violence” has been the subject of a growing international campaign that seeks to equate acts of vandalism, or, really, any action by Jews in the West Bank and Jerusalem—or even their presence there—with murderous terrorism by Palestinians, in an effort to create a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas.
Democratic Congress members, led by Rep. Jerry Nadler, recently proposed legislation that would codify the Biden administration’s unprecedented sanctions on Israelis allegedly involved in such conduct, and which had set the stage for the Europeans to follow. The agenda behind the Democratic play became clear in late May, when the European Union announced sanctions against six “extremist settler” groups and individuals. Though the announcement repeatedly mentioned “violence,” none of those sanctioned is accused of anything resembling it. Instead, some of them were targeted for “institut[ing] legal proceedings and lobbies” against illegal Palestinian construction and destruction of antiquities in the West Bank. Others were sanctioned for building homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria. The EU designations, parroting the Biden administration, make explicit that the real crime is political: allegedly “undermining the viability of the two-state solution.”
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