The new White House website stated that US President Donald Trump on Monday lifted the penalties that the previous Biden administration had placed on far-right Israeli settler organisations and individuals who were allegedly responsible for violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
According to the website, Trump revoked Executive Order 14115, which permitted the application of specific sanctions “on Persons Undermining Peace, security, and Stability in the West Bank” and was issued on February 1, 2024.
Trump’s move reverses a significant policy move made by the administration of former President Joe Biden, which had imposed penalties on several Israeli settlement individuals and organisations, freezing their US assets and generally prohibiting Americans from doing business with them.
While the conflict in Gaza garnered most of the world’s attention, some of Israel’s Western supporters are becoming concerned about the increasing violence committed by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and land grabs in the occupied region.
The US imposed sanctions on settlers following repeated calls by the Biden administration for the Israeli government to act to hold radicals accountable for acts that Washington feels undermined aspirations for a two-state settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.
The West Bank of the Jordan River, which the Palestinians desire to be the centre of their sovereign state, has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. There, it has established Jewish settlements that are prohibited in the majority of nations. Israel contests this, pointing to biblical and historical connections to the region.
Trump took a very different tactic when it came to settlements. Before Biden reinstated the long-standing US stance that settlements were unlawful, Trump abandoned it during his first term in 2019.
In October, Israel Gantz, who is wanted by the ICC for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel in Gaza, told Reuters that he expected the sanctions to be lifted in the event of a Trump victory. Gantz is connected to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is the chairman of the main Yesha settler council.
