Brussels – Five international allies of the European Union have imposed sanctions against the two most extremist ministers in Israel’s government. The United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand have finally taken a step that Brussels has yet to manage, despite the fact that former High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell had suggested it almost a year ago.
The Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, are responsible for incitement to violence and gross violations of the human rights of Palestinians“, claim the five countries that decided to freeze the assets of the two members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet and ban them from entering the country.
“The extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is scary and dangerous. These actions are unacceptable,” reads the joint statement. The two ministers are both leaders of the Religious Zionism party, whose programme explicitly calls for the annexation of the West Bank and full Israeli control of the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. They reject the idea of a Palestinian state and call for the cancellation of the 1993 Oslo Accords, by which Israel and the then Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) committed to mutual recognition.
Since the Hamas terrorist attack on 7 October 2023, Smotrich and Ben Gvir have increasingly hardened their anti-Palestinian rhetoric, the former going so far as to affirm that starving the population of Gaza could be justifiable and the latter that Palestinians should be expelled from the Strip. Ben Gvir even left the government when the ceasefire was agreed upon, rejoining it once the deal fell through. “We have discussed the issue extensively with the Israeli government, but those responsible for the violence continue to act with encouragement and impunity,” argue London, Oslo, and the other partners.
According to United Nations data, over the past year and a half, more than 1,900 attacks have been carried out against Palestinian civilians by extremist Israeli settlers. “The Israeli government must fulfil its obligations under international law and we urge it to take meaningful steps to end extremist, violent and expansionist rhetoric,” the joint statement continued. The five governments allied with Tel Aviv emphasise that “today’s measures are directed against individuals who, in our view, threaten Israel’s security and its standing in the world.”
The two ministers’ replies are not surprising: “Britain has already tried once to prevent us from colonising the cradle of our homeland, and we will not let them do it again. We are determined to continue building,” wrote on X Smotrich. While Ben-Gvir preferred another religious reference: “We have overcome Pharaoh, we will also overcome the Starmer Wall,” he commented.
Closing the joint statement is the reference to Gaza: “Today’s measures focus on the West Bank, but obviously they cannot be considered separately from the Gaza catastrophe,” write the five governments, who reiterate to Tel Aviv their opposition to any “illegal transfer of Palestinians from Gaza or within the West Bank” and to any “reduction of the territory of the Gaza Strip.”
The absence of the United States and the European Union from the joint decision of some of their major international partners is conspicuous. In the EU regime of sanctions for human rights violations, there are already nine individuals and five entities linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The idea of adding the two ministers has already been raised at the last Foreign Affairs Council by several governments (Sweden, as well as France, Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia). Still, so far, nothing has come of it. At the next meeting of the foreign ministers of the 27, on 23 June, at stake is the possible revision of the Association Agreement with Israel due to human rights violations. It is to be expected that, now that the step has already been taken by others, the possibility of sanctioning Netanyahu’s ministers will also become more concrete in Brussels.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
