Two Israeli ministers sanctioned by 5 Western democracies

For the first time, five Western democracies, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Norway, have sanctioned two far-right Israeli politicians, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who are also ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, for “inciting extremist violence” against Palestinians in the West Bank. Former American President Joe Biden had also sanctioned Israeli settlers in West Bank violence, but these sanctions were lifted when President Donald Trump took office this January.

In a joint statement, the five countries stated that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich “have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights. Extremist rhetoric advocated the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of new Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous.” United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy accused Ben-Gvir and Smotrich of “inciting violence against Palestinian people for months and months” and “encouraging egregious abuses of human rights.”

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich remain defiant in the face of sanctions imposed by the five countries. Ben-Gvir, who belongs to the extreme religious right-wing said, “We overcame Pharoah, we’ll povercome Starmer’s wall,” referring to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Smotrich, the finance minister, learned of the sanctions decision while inaugurating a new West Bank settlement. He said, “We are determined to continue building.” Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the sanctions “outrageous”.

On the other hand, Israeli human rights activist Eitay Mack describing the sanctions against Ben-Gvir and Smotrich as “historic”, elaborated, “It means that the wall of immunity that Israeli politicians had has been broken.

It’s unbelievable that it took so long for Western governments to sanction Israeli politicians, and the fact that it’s being done while Trump is president is quite amazing.” He said, “It is a message to Netanyahu himself that he could be next.” The International Criminal Court (ICC) has already issued a warrant against Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant of human rights violation against the Palestinians in Gaza along with Hamas leaders.

Netanyahu retorted saying that the ICC was biased. And the United States sanctioned four of the judges of the ICC for their action against Netanyahu. The four judges were ICC Second Vice President Reine Alapini-Gansou (Benin), Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza (Peru) and Beti Hohler (Slovenia).

It had been the case that the whole countries faced sanctions as in the case of Russia after the Ukraine war, and Iran because of its alleged uranium enrichment programme.

The question of course is how effective the sanctions against individuals are. In many, the countries can continue to do business with each other once the individuals have been named for sanctions.

In May, Britain had suspended free trade talks with Israel. If Western democracies believe that Israeli violence in Gaza and in West Bank violated human rights of Palestinians, then the sanctions have to more than against individuals.

There have to be economic sanctions against the erring country, and in this instance it happened to be Israel. Due to historical reasons where the whole of Europe had felt guilty of the Nazi genocide of European Jews, most countries have held themselves back acting against Israel. But Israel has stretched the patience of the European countries, and it had shown no restraint against the Palestinians, apart from refusing to implement the Oslo Accords which would have led the two-state solution of Palestine and Israel. Tel Aviv had been obstinate in its refusal to vacate West Bank as it did Gaza.