The United States and EU this week toughened sanctions against radical Israeli settlers accused of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Americans and Europeans had already sanctioned violent settlers in recent months. Who are the Israeli settlers affected by these measures? Elements of response with our special correspondent in Tel Aviv.
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With our special correspondent in Tel Aviv, Nicolas Falez
Four Israeli settlers and two movements sanctioned by theEuropean Union. One person and two organizations sanctioned on the same day by the UNITED STATES, who had already published a list of names last February. The measures announced this week mainly concern the bank assets of the persons and entities concerned. European sanctions also include a travel ban within the EU.
The objective is to increase pressure on this movement, and also on the Israeli government, to act. The Israeli nationals targeted belong to two branches of the local extreme right. The first is the Kahanist movement, openly racist and supremacist. The second group is the “Young people from the hills”.
Perle Nicole-Hassid studied them. She is a sociologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and specialist in radical movements. It is, she says, “ a few hundred activists, most of whom live in the hills of the West Bank, and who are completely opposed to the State ofIsrael as it exists today, they want a theocracy, a kingdom, instead. »
As a result, they are in a process of purifying the land, and they are opposing an almost total war against the Palestinian population on a daily, blind and indiscriminate basis.
Within the current government coalition in Israel, ministers and deputies from the religious extreme right maintain close ties with settlers sanctioned by the United States and Europe… this is the case of the Minister of Security interior Itamar Ben Gvir, who immediately condemned the measures announced in Washington and Brussels.
Read alsoEU sanctions Israeli settlers for ‘serious human rights violations’ in West Bank