US Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during meetings yesterday that the Biden administration is preparing to announce a series of visa bans against Israeli settlers involved in attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel. A US official confirmed the plan to AFP.
The announcement will likely only include the number of settlers being banned from the US, rather than their names, the Israeli official says, explaining that the US hopes that the anonymity will serve as a deterrent against those considering targeting Palestinians who won’t know whether they’ve been black-listed or not.
The visa ban could be imposed as early as next week, the Israeli official says.
Biden could have done this years ago but only waited until now. A policy that won’t have any real teeth. I’m not satisfied.
To add to this, it’s farcical because these people are in Netanyahu’s cabinet.
The chief of Israel’s national police was already on US and Israeli watchlists. He was convicted of terrorism in Israel in 2006. And now he’s in charge of the police, and is arming settlers and encouraging them to violently take the land by force. I’m sure telling him that he can’t visit the Grand Canyon is going to fix this.
They’re probably anonymous because it’d be awkward for Blinken if the culprits have pictures of themselves shaking his hand last weekend.
For those looking for details, Google Itmar Bin Givir and Bezalel Smotrich.
unfortunately it’s probably mostly for PR… elections and all.
“Nothing is ever good enough for me”
Well, this is pretty much nothing, so that checks out.
It’s about as milquetoast response to actual terrorism and ethnic cleansing as you can get. Years late, no real effect or punishment, won’t apply to a relatively large number who are Israeli-US dual-citizens and thus don’t need visas, etc.
Edit: Oh and Israel has a visa waiver agreement with the US right now so unless that’s suspended it’s absolutely useless because nobody even has to apply for a visa from Israel.
“I settle for nothing, I hate change and love the world as it is”