{"id":383422,"date":"2024-08-12T13:09:41","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T11:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/08\/12\/ue-borrell-sanzioni-ministri-israele\/"},"modified":"2024-08-23T12:18:35","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T10:18:35","slug":"eu-high-representative-borrell-suggests-imposing-sanctions-against-two-of-israels-ministers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/08\/12\/eu-high-representative-borrell-suggests-imposing-sanctions-against-two-of-israels-ministers\/","title":{"rendered":"EU High Representative Borrell suggests imposing sanctions against two of Israel’s ministers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – After the baffling\u00a0words<\/a> of Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich<\/strong>, on the moral justification of starving the people of Gaza to obtain the release of hostages in the hands of Hamas, came those of Itamar Ben-Gvir<\/strong>, Minister for National Security and leader of the far-right ‘Jewish Power’ party. It was too much for the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, who had strongly condemned Smotrich’s statement and asked the Israeli government to distance itself from it. Now,\u00a0Borrell has suggested imposing sanctions against its two most extremist ministers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In a post<\/a> on his X profile, Ben-Gvir criticized the negotiation strategy that the US and major countries in the region encourage because Hamas “must continue to be trampled until it surrenders completely.” For this to happen, the Jewish state should “stop the transfer of humanitarian aid and fuel<\/strong> to Gaza until all our abductees have returned home.” In addition, the minister urged the Israeli government to “encourage immigration and occupy the territories of the Gaza Strip<\/strong> to keep them permanently in our hands.”<\/p>\n

<\/a>
Far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir (L) and\u00a0Bezalel Smotrich (Photo by AMIR COHEN \/ POOL \/ AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Statements that echo those made on several occasions by Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionism party, and are not leaps forward by the leaders but reflect the principles and guidelines of their political formations<\/strong>: Jewish Power’s political program explicitly calls for the annexation of the West Bank and Israel’s full control of the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It rejects the idea of a Palestinian state. It also calls for the cancellation of the 1993 Oslo Accords, by which Israel and the then Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) committed to mutual recognition.<\/p>\n

“Like Minister Smotrich’s sinister statements, this\u00a0is an incitement to war crimes<\/strong>,” commented the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, suggesting adding an EU sanctions regime to the\u00a0agenda to target the two ministers. The\u00a0EU sanctions\u00a0regime<\/a> for human rights violations\u00a0already includes<\/a> nine individuals and five entities linked to illegal Israeli settlements<\/strong> in the occupied Palestinian territories. Those who end up on the EU blacklist are subject to the<\/span> freezing of assets held in Europe and a ban on setting foot on European soil. At the same time, individuals and entities affected by the sanctions cannot receive funds or economic resources for their benefit.<\/p>\n

Although it is Borrell’s prerogative as High Representative to propose changes to the lists of those subject to EU restrictive measures, unanimous approval from all member countries is needed to proceed<\/strong>. The head of European diplomacy again urged the Israeli government to “unequivocally distance itself from these incitements to commit war crimes” and to “engage in good faith in negotiations<\/strong> facilitated by the United States, Qatar, and Egypt for an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They are the ministers for National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, both leaders of two factions of religious extremists. Ben-Gvir called for a complete cut-off of fuel and humanitarian aid to Gaza, while Smotrich legitimized the possibility of starving the Palestinian population<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":347414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[25890,28690,25792,25804],"class_list":["post-383422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-gas-and-3","tag-josep-borrell-en","tag-sanctionsin"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383422"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383480,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383422\/revisions\/383480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}