A coalition of human rights organisations have urged the European Union to sanction key actors in Israel’s illegal settlement system as it continues to expand on Palestinian territory.
The organisations, which includes the Belgian coalition for international solidarity 11.11.11 alongside Canadian and American organisations, have compiled evidence on the structural architecture behind the illegal settlement movement.
Detailed sanctions files have been sent to the EU targeting the operations of the World Zionist Organization (WZO), its Settlement Division, and Israeli Minister of Settlements Orit Strook.
The organisations in question have been found to support settlers annexing and expanding illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory under international law.
In their call, they reference the story of notorious Israeli settler Yinon Levi, who in July shot and killed Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen during a non-violent protest in Masafer Yatta.
Hathaleen, a well-known human rights defender, was a contributor to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. Levi faced no legal consequences despite his long track record of violence against Palestinians.
No other land
On Monday, the UN Security Council in New York was told that the past three months have seen a significant increase in Israeli settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, as well as threats of annexation and mounting violence there.
The Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization (WZOSD) has managed nearly one-third of the land in Area C of the occupied West Bank.
Illustration picture shows a visit to the old city of Hebron on day two of the visit of former Minister of Development to the Palestinian Territories, Tuesday 10 May 2022. Credit: Belga / Benoit Doppagne
The organisations document how the WZOSD enables settlers to establish illegal outposts through fraudulent mortgage schemes, the allocation of privately-owned Palestinian land, and opaque legal mechanisms.
As of May 2023, it had allocated land to 87 illegal outposts, including land privately owned by Palestinians, according to the coalition.
"From these outposts, violent and extremist settlers terrorise Palestinian villages and farmers," the organisations say. Attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank have been documented extensively in the media for years.
Minister for settlements
The coalition's file also focuses on Israeli Settlement Minister Orit Strook, a key figure in the far-right Religious Zionist Party.
Strook is an open advocate of the formal annexation of the West Bank. She has also called for settlements to be established in occupied Lebanese territory.
In a public speech, Strook recently praised settlers as the “true fighters for the Land of Israel,” describing herself as their "combat support".
She declared: "He [settler Eliram Azulay] does everything, we just help, we are what’s called combat support on this issue, you are the real fighters for the Land of Israel and I simply salute you."
The coalition says this is the first in a series of sanctions files they will submit in coming months, aimed at targeting the broader policy infrastructure behind Israel’s settlement regime.
IDF soldiers protecting armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and Settlements Minister Orit Strook.
Two-state solution?
In September, the EU announced it would propose a series of sanctions, including against individual violent settlers and extremist government ministers.
"The plans for a settlement project in the so-called E1 area would essentially cut off the occupied West Bank from East Jerusalem," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her annual State of the European Union speech.
"The actions and statements by the most extremist ministers of the Israeli government which incite violence. All of this points to a clear attempt to undermine the two-state solution," she told MEPs.
While current EU sanctions have focused on a handful of violent settlers, the coalition urges the EU to finally extend its sanctions regime to the political and institutional enablers of these widespread human rights violations.
"At a time when Israel’s government openly states it will never allow a Palestinian state and is preparing formal annexation, action is long overdue," says Middle East policy expert Willem Staes from Belgium's 11.11.11.
"We call on the EU to apply its own human rights criteria consistently — and to sanction those who design, fund and enforce the illegal occupation."
Trump plan
It comes just days after Trump presented his peace plan for Gaza, which calls for an immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages and the disarming of Hamas.
"The Trump 'peace plan' is neither a plan, nor a credible path to peace," Staes tells The Brussels Times. "It also doesn’t contain any actions to counter the ethnic cleansing campaign that Israel has been accelerating in the West Bank lately."
Staes argues this is why going after the architecture of the occupation of the West Bank, including organisations like WZO and minister Strook, "remains more vital than ever".
An Israeli police sniper aims at Palestinian stone-throwers in the West Bank town of El-Bireh 30 March 2000. Credit: Belga
However, Trump's plan could derail some EU efforts of sanctioning violent settlers in the West Bank, even as momentum was beginning to pick up amid public uproar over the humanitarian crisis and famine in Gaza.
"In the past couple of months public pressure has increased so much that European policy makers were left with little other options than considering sanctions, at long last," Staes says.
"It is indeed correct that some of these policy makers will likely use the Trump plan to put on hold any discussion on sanctions, which we can already observe within the EU and certain Member States.
However, he argues that European public opinion remains strongly in favour of sanctioning Israel, meaning EU politicians will eventually will have to follow.
The sanctions package was prepared by EU-based 11.11.11, PAX and The Rights Forum, together with Canadian groups including the Palestinian Canadian Congress, the Coalition of Palestinian Community Organizations, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME), Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) and Just Peace Advocates, and with the Sanctions Law Center in the United States.
