The European Union has moved to sanction extremist Israeli settlers, prompting threats of West Bank annexation from Israeli officials and escalating diplomatic friction.
The EU has agreed to sanction extremist settlers, prompting Israeli threats to annex the West Bank, on top of what an EU commissioner called its “war of terror” in Gaza and Lebanon.. “We have moved on from the political deadlock that was there for a long time.. Violence and extremism carry consequences,” said EU foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas on Monday (11 May) after meeting foreign ministers in Brussels.. The “deadlock” had been Hungary’s veto,
which was dropped by the new government of prime minister Péter Magyar.. The names of those to be sanctioned have not yet been made public.. But acccording to Israeli daily Haaretz, four Israeli settler entities (Amana, Nachala, Hashomer Yosh, and Regavim) and three related individuals (Daniella Weiss, Avichai Suissa, and Meir Deutsch) are to be placed under an EU visa-ban and asset-freeze.. Weiss is known as the “godmother” of the settler movement and has featured
in a documentary by British film-maker Louis Theroux, as well as appearing on the popular Piers Morgan podcast.. The asset-freezes cause special annoyance, as even Israeli banks sometimes block targets’ accounts in order to comply with international partners.. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar called the EU decision a “completely distorted moral equivalence”, as the seven Israeli names will join a list of human-rights abusers that also includes fighters from the Palestinian group Hamas.. Israeli finance
minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who is close to the sanctioned Regavim group, said Israel should annex “strategic” parts of the West Bank.. “In response to the [EU sanctions] move, I call on the prime minister to convene the cabinet this evening and approve it [the annexation plan],” he said.. For their part, the EU foreign ministers also discussed a Franco-Swedish proposal to either stop free-trade perks for Israeli settler imports or to ban them altogether.. “There
was also a call by many member states to take this forward,” said Kallas.. “It is true that many member states want more.. And there are also many member states who don’t want more.. So this is where we are,” she added.. Those who want more include Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain, as well as France and Sweden.. Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, and Lithuania said on Monday they preferred to
wait for a detailed European Commission proposal on the anti-settler trade measures, while Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Germany spoke out against the move, an EUobserver source said.. “We have to examine it, we have to study it,” said Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani.. But Irish foreign minister Helen McEntee said: “We need to act now … It is absolutely essential that we align ourselves with international law, as it’s been made very clear
that this kind of trade is illegal”.. A settler-trade ban would require a qualified majority vote (QMV) in the EU Council, which means Italy would have to get on board.. Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain also want to end free-trade perks for all Israeli imports to the EU, which also needs a QMV.. The Dutch foreign minister, Tom Berendsen, said the EU should only hold votes once a majority is ready, which was
still “not the case”.. But the Spanish foreign minister said: “Let’s go to a vote … Let’s find out how many we are, those who agree and those who do not”.. For her part, the Austrian foreign minister, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, said the EU needed to keep open diplomatic channels which tougher sanctions would put under threat.. “I only had a long phone call with Gideon Sa’ar on Friday.. And I think, especially when you are
of a different opinion in many questions, it is important to stay in the conversation,” she said.. But if Sa’ar or Smotrich were outraged by parallels between settlers and Hamas, then the EU commissioner for crisis management, Hadja Lahbib, risked making them even angrier by her remarks.. Lahbib said she had returned from Lebanon on Sunday, where villages in the south of the country “look like Gaza” after Israeli airstrikes.. Israel’s ‘war of terror’ “This
war is a war of terror.. It’s a war with blatant violation of international law.. Every day, humanitarian workers, journalists are killed while doing their job,” she said.. “Entire villages are destroyed.. And the buffer zone also keeps expanding into the Lebanese territory,” she added.. In Gaza, where Israel killed over 72,000 people since 2023, Israeli “airstrikes, shelling, and gunfire continue.. And the yellow line [of Israeli ground occupation] is expanding and prevents also access
for humanitarian aid”, Habib also said.. Barry Andrews, an Irish liberal MEP in charge of development aid, who visited East Jerusalem and the West Bank last week, also said he was “shocked” by what he saw.. This included an “exponential” surge in settlements and testimonies of settler violence, public prayers by a rabbi outside the Al Aqsa mosque calling for its destruction, and openly “racist” language about Palestinians by ordinary Israelis and officials.. Just three
percent of violent settlers ever faced convictions, while Israeli military courts slammed 98 percent of Palestinian defendants, he said.. Settler farmers also got 90 percent of West Bank water resources, he added.. “So, that’s apartheid,” Andrews told EUobserver.. Claudio Francavilla, from the Human Rights Watch group, also told EUobserver: “Several EU governments are still against measures to ensure EU trade doesn’t feed into occupation and apartheid, proving to care more about Israel’s illegal settlements than
those ethnically cleansed to make space for them”.
EU, West Bank, settlers, sanctions, Israel, diplomacy, trade