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.
That’s great! Escalation shouldn’t occur by non-state actors and hopefully this will act as a deterrent for civilian violence even if Bibi’s administration is unwilling to punish them.
Just a start tho, I don’t imagine the olive thieves or Hilltop Youth were planning many new york vacations, but it’s a step
From what I can tell some illegal settlers are American citizens
Who needs a visa when you have a US passport.
Sure, but some of them might invite their shithead friends for a visit
The original ones were.
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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”
Fuking FINALLY
Feels like a slap on the wrist for, you know, stealing actual fucking land violently.
It’s something, but there’s so much much much more that can be done.
US hopes that the anonymity will serve as cover for not having actually banned anyone because they have no idea who to ban.
That’s not how visa bans work ‘As a result, the Secretary of State may order U.S. consular officers at U.S. embassies and consulates in these countries to implement visa restrictions on certain categories of visa applicants. These sanctions may remain in place until the Secretary of Homeland Security notifies the Secretary of State that removal cooperation has improved to an acceptable level.’
The names of those sanctions have most likely already been uploaded to the US embassies and consulates in Israel, waiting to be denied if they go and try to get one.
And unfortunately Biden grated visa waivers for Israel earlier this year. Nobody has to apply for a visa so there is no screening process or way to weed these bad actors out.
May be linked to this development https://www.axios.com/2023/11/16/israel-visa-waiver-palestinian-americans-us-violation.
"A U.S. official said the Biden administration will give Israel some more time to work out a solution.
But the official stressed that if Israel doesn’t find a solution within weeks, the U.S. might have to suspend Israel’s visa waiver privileges."
Thanks for the update!
Now will Biden have the guts to suspend the program?
this is the distinction the world SHOULD do in general, but fails.
Stop giving them my money Congress cucks
I’m ignorant on this topic.
What sort of lives do these “settlers” live? Do they have the resources to travel internationally? How many settlers are actually applying for visas?
This is a good policy. But how many people does it really affect? This isn’t going to stop people from causing violence in Palestinian areas, it’s just going to keep a handful of violent Israelis out of the USA. Keeping violent people out is great and all, but this has to be symbolic at best, right?
Edit: it sounds like from the article this will only affect about a hundred people involved in specific recent events, not set up some sort of system of banning settlers for their actions.
I hope it’s the bed rock to expand further
“After X date all settlers located below X latitude will be sanctioned” with the criteria expanding every month. But j know that’s wishful thinking
@altofaltception this is partly what I had envisioned, more eyes on recent settler violence due to the war leading to pressure to hopefully have them dealt with permanently.
