After years of
toothless verbal condemnation of Israeli settler violence by successive US
governments, the Biden administration took the historic step last week of
imposing sanctions against four settlers involved in recent attacks in the
occupied West Bank. The executive order includes freezing the settlers’ assets
in the US and banning their entry into the country. Israeli banks have also
frozen the accounts of two of the settlers on the list in compliance with the
US sanctions.
اضافة اعلان
Settler violence has
been on the rise for years, with perpetrators very often supported in the act
by
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) soldiers and enjoying near-total impunity in
the Israeli justice system. The inauguration of the most far-right government
in Israel’s history just over a year ago, with a man once arrested on suspicion
of planning an attack becoming overlord of the West Bank, and a man once
convicted of support for terrorism becoming national security minister, has
further emboldened violent settlers: 2023 saw a sharp escalation in large-scale
pogroms, including in Huwara, Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya, Turmus Ayya, and many
other locations.
These attacks are
succeeding in their state-sanctioned goal of cleansing vast regions of the West
Bank of their Palestinian inhabitants to enable the further expansion of
Israeli settlements. And the situation has deteriorated even further under the
shadow of war, with settlers forcibly displacing at least 16 entire Palestinian
villages since
October 7, 2023.
“Settler violence has been on the rise for years, with perpetrators very often supported in the act by IOF soldiers and enjoying near-total impunity in the Israeli justice system.”
To try to assess the
significance of Biden’s decision, +972 Magazine and Local Call spoke with
Palestinians and Israelis who have been directly impacted by the violence of
the targeted settlers, namely David Chai Chasdai, Shalom Zicherman, Einan
Tanjil, and Yinon Levi, and their comrades in arms. Most welcomed the executive
order but wondered whether it would have any effect on the ground; whether it
would deter other settlers; whether sanctions would be extended to other
settlers involved in the violence; and whether such sanctions would ultimately
reach the leadership of the settlement movement, including those sitting in
government.
‘These are organized groups that come to kill’
David Chai Chasdai was
arrested for leading one of the worst instances of settler violence in recent
memory: the pogrom in the Palestinian town of Huwara in February 2023, during
which hundreds of settlers set fire to dozens of homes and hundreds of
vehicles, wounding over 100 residents in the process. Sameh Aqtash, from the
nearby village of Za’atara, was shot and killed during the attack.
Chasdai, who lives in
the settlement of Beit El, is a familiar figure in the world of the “hilltop
youth”, the generic term given to young Israeli settlers who routinely descend
from illegal West Bank outposts to attack Palestinians. In 2014, then a teenager,
he was described in the settler news outlet Makor Rishon as “the number one
target of the Nationalist Crimes Division in the Judea and Samaria [police]
district and one of the names that cause the greatest headaches for members of
the Jewish Unit of the Shin Bet.”
In 2015, Chasdai was
convicted of intent to unlawfully use hazardous materials after bottles filled
with gasoline and other flammable substances were found in his car. Two years
later, he was convicted of aggravated assault for attacking a Palestinian taxi
driver with tear gas. In 2021, he was convicted of threatening a police
officer.
Chasdai was one of
only 18 settlers arrested after the Huwara pogrom (only one of whom was
charged). He was soon released but then re-arrested and placed into three
months of administrative detention, a tool Israel uses almost exclusively
against Palestinians to detain whomever it wants without charge or trial. 50
Knesset members signed a call for his release.
“It is a symbolic
measure,” a resident of Huwara from the Awwad family, who asked that his first
name not be published for fear of settler reprisal, told +972. “America says,
‘We also watch what is going on in the [occupied] territories. It helps a little
that the Israeli government knows that the Palestinians have good relations
with the US and are giving them material about what the settlers are doing.”
Awwad believes that
although the sanctions are a good start, they are not nearly enough to deter
settler violence. “It is not just
Huwara — it is everywhere in the West Bank,”
he said. “Settlers walking around in military uniforms and with weapons. These
are not people who just shoot and run. These are organized groups that come to
kill, and America should declare them terrorist organizations. They are part of
the right [wing], and the right-wing is responsible for them: it gives them
orders, gives them lawyers and money, and supports their criminal behavior.”
Awwad also questions
the effectiveness of this initial package of sanctions, as these settlers
likely do not regularly, if ever, travel to the US, and they almost certainly
do not have American bank accounts. “We need the sanctions to be here,” he
says. “The ones who need to act against the settlers are the government and the
law enforcement authorities in Israel. Only if this happens will they begin to
be afraid.
“The problem is that
the government here does not want to act against them,” Awwad continued. “The
settlers are part of the government, so the government does not want to deal
with them because they are afraid that the coalition will fall.”
Chasdai himself
responded to the freezing of his bank accounts, telling Israel’s public
broadcaster KAN that it was a “national disgrace,” all the more so because it
took place under a right-wing government. “Throughout the generations, we have
seen many oppressors who have harmed the people of Israel,” Chasdai said. “We
will also get through the persecution of Biden and his collaborators.”
‘It is convenient to blame the small fish’
Another settler on
Biden’s list is Shalom Zicherman, a resident of the Mitzpe Yair outpost. In
June 2022, he threw stones through the window of a car belonging to left-wing
Israeli activists. I was present at the scene and documented the attack, after
which Zicherman was able to return to the outpost, despite the fact that the
army’s Judea Area Brigade Commander Col. Yehuda Rosilio saw the attack and did
nothing to stop or detain him. The IOF Spokesperson initially described the
incident as “friction between settlers and protesters,” but Zicherman was later
indicted, and his trial is ongoing.
The US State
Department notes that “according to video evidence, [Zicherman] assaulted
Israeli activists and their vehicles in the West Bank, blocking them on the
street, and attempted to break the windows of passing vehicles with activists
inside. Zicherman cornered at least two of the activists and injured both.”
According to the
order, Zicherman and another settler “directly or indirectly engaged or
attempted to engage in planning, ordering, otherwise directing, or
participating in efforts to place civilians in reasonable fear of violence with
the purpose or effect of necessitating a change of residence to avoid such
violence, affecting the West Bank.”
Yasmin Eran Vardi, a
left-wing activist who spends most of her time in the West Bank doing “protect
presence” solidarity work, whereby Israeli and international activists put
their bodies in between Palestinians on the one hand and settlers and soldiers on
the other, was wounded in the attack. “I am in favor of sanctions being
imposed, but these sanctions do not mean a lot,” she told +972. “It is clear
that these four [settlers] did bad things, but there is a whole policy here
that allows them to do whatever they want, under the auspices of the army and
the government, all with American funding.”
“Awwad believes that although the sanctions are a good start, they are not nearly enough to deter settler violence.”
Like Awwad, Eran Vardi
wondered whether these sanctions would effectively deter other settlers, or
whether they would even deter the four who were themselves sanctioned. “The
question is whether anything will change, even a little,” she said.
Eran Vardi wants to
see more significant sanctions, but she has no expectation that the US will
impose them. “These sanctions demonstrate Biden’s full cooperation with
Israel’s needs,” she said. “It is convenient to blame the small fish,
especially because [the settlers] hurt Israeli citizens. Biden could stop
funding the killing in Gaza if he wanted to.”
‘Why focus specifically on those who harmed Israelis?’
Einan Tanjil, a third
settler named in Biden’s executive order, was documented in November 2021
attacking Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists who came to harvest olives
in the village of Surif. The order states that Tanjil “was involved in assaulting
Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists by attacking them with stones and
clubs, resulting in wounds that required medical treatment.”
+972 and Local Call
reported at the time that masked settlers descended from nearby outposts and,
using stones and clubs, wounded at least three Israeli activists who
subsequently needed medical treatment, including the veteran activist Rabbi
Arik Asherman. Tanjil was charged with assault and causing bodily harm.
Netta Ben Porat, an
Israeli human rights activist, was wounded during the incident. “There were
eight of us Israelis,” she recounted. “Einan and his friend attacked us with
clubs, and another activist stood between me and them, and then he beat me.
“He was only charged
with assault, not even aggravated assault or politically-driven assault [which
would carry a more severe punishment],” Ben Porat continued. “They omitted that
he attacked more people. The indictment does not clarify why he attacked us. He
claimed self-defense, even though I was standing to the side and filming while
he hit me.”
To Ben Porat, the
sanctions appear “ridiculous.” “Out of all [the settlers], the one the US
imposes sanctions on is a 19-year-old who attacked Israelis once or twice? It
is irrelevant,” she said. “They could have tried a little harder — what about
the military security coordinator who was armed and who brought the settlers
[to where we were] and watched from above [as they attacked us]? Or the farmers
responsible for expelling entire communities? If the problem is settler
violence and its impact on Palestinians, then why focus specifically on those
who harmed Israelis?
“Maybe this is a
harbinger of things to come,” she continued. “I hope this is a first step, that
sanctions will be imposed on [Bezalel] Smotrich and [prominent settler leader]
Yossi Dagan.”
‘We hope this will help us return to our lands’
The final settler
targeted by the sanctions is Yinon Levi, who helped found the Meitarim Farm
outpost. According to Kerem Navot, an NGO that tracks the dispossession of
Palestinian land, Levi owns an earthworks company that has been hired by state
authorities to carry out demolition orders in Palestinian villages in the West
Bank.
Last November,
violence emanating from Meitarim Farm led to the expulsion of the Palestinian
community of Khirbet Zanuta, 27 families, totaling around 250 people, from
their homes near the Meitar checkpoint in the southern West Bank. At the
beginning of the war, Levi’s company also blocked roads leading to the entrance
of the Palestinian village of Susiya, an apparent attempt to intimidate the
village residents.
A petition filed on
behalf of the Palestinians expelled from Zanuta states that Levi headed a group
of settlers who, accompanied by two soldiers, came to the village on October
12, beat village residents, threatened to kill them, smashed solar panels, and
destroyed a car. According to the petition, Levi drove a bulldozer and “began
extensive and massive demolitions of buildings, infrastructure, olive trees,
and other agricultural crops belonging to the villagers.”
“The settlers do not do it alone. They serve the government, and the police do nothing when they attack us. They know that no law applies to them. They are not afraid of anything.”
Levi differs slightly
from the other three settlers on the American list in that he is not merely a
hilltop youth activist, but rather the leader of a settler farm. In recent
years, dozens of such farms have been established in the West Bank, and they are
at the heart of the effort to expel Palestinians from their land. Although most
of them were not established legally, they received government support and
protection from the military.
“I did not believe
this would happen,” Fayez Al-Tal, the leader of Khirbet Zanuta, told +972 in
response to the announcement of sanctions against Levi. “We read the decision
and were overjoyed. Yinon Levi is in charge of the outpost: he is one of the
people who came at the beginning of the war and threatened us. We hope this
will help us in our lawsuit requesting to return to our lands, and we hope that
the court will see that the Americans are imposing sanctions. But Israel is not
doing anything.”
According to Al-Tal,
it is important to remember the broader context of settler violence: “The
settlers do not do it alone. They serve the government, and the police do
nothing when they attack us. They know that no law applies to them. They are
not afraid of anything. The Americans cannot say a word about Gaza, because
Hamas is there, but there is no Hamas here, so they can ask why there are
violent attacks by settlers.”
Like other
interviewees, Al-Tal hopes that the order will later be extended to other
settlers, including Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, and that “the US Consulate
and Embassy will pressure the Civil Administration or the police to prevent the
attacks and bring us back to our land.”
+972 and Local Call
contacted Chasdai’s lawyer, but he did not respond. We also contacted Levi, but
he did not respond. Levi told other media outlets that the accusations leveled
against him were “false.” Tanjil’s lawyer referred us to the Honenu legal organization,
which said that it does not represent him on the issue of US sanctions.
Zicherman could not be reached for comment.
Oren Ziv is a photojournalist,
reporter for Local Call, and a founding member of the Activestills photography collective.
This
essay was published first by +972 Magazine on February 8, 2024
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