Western countries tout their support for a two-state solution but exert little pressure on settlement expansion.
The Canadian government has announced it will impose sanctions on four Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank as settler violence against Palestinians increases during Israel’s war in Gaza.
In a press release Thursday, Canada’s Ministry of Global Affairs said it was sanctioning Israeli settlers for the first time for their “violent and destabilizing” actions against Palestinians.
“Attacks by extremist Israeli settlers – a long-standing source of tension and conflict in the region – have intensified alarmingly in recent months,” the ministry said. “It has undermined Palestinian human rights, the prospects for a two-state solution and posed significant risks to regional security. »
The targeted settlers are David Chai Chasdai, Yinon Levi, Zvi Bar Yosef and Moshe Sharvit. The ministry said all four engaged directly or indirectly in violence against Palestinian civilians and property.
The sanctions were announced as impatience with Israel’s refusal to curb settler attacks grows among Western countries that have long touted their support for a two-state solution but impose few consequences on the steady expansion of settlers. Israeli settlements built on Palestinian land in the West Bank. These settlements are illegal under international law.
In February, the United States announced it would sanction a handful of Israeli settlers, including Chasdai and Levi, for their attacks on Palestinians.
The move raises the possibility of a broader U.S. campaign to put pressure on the settlement movement, but President Joe Biden’s administration has so far limited sanctions to a handful of individuals.
The United States has resisted calls to sanction far-right Israeli ministers, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, but even more limited sanctions against settlers have sparked criticism. anger of Israeli officials.
Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, settler attacks against Palestinians have reached new heights, often under the gaze of Israeli forces who have taken little action against their perpetrators.
This week, a group of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian truck driver in the West Bank, mistakenly thinking he was delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza.
According to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, which has declared that Israeli policies in the occupied territories constitute a crime of apartheid, only 3% of investigations into attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians – of which many go unreported – resulting in convictions.
This apathy is not surprising to Palestinians, who see right-wing settlers and Israeli state policies as two iterations of a joint enterprise to displace Palestinians and promote Jewish settlement in the occupied territory.