Biden aides admit they mistakenly targeted 2 US citizens immune from settler sanctions
Officials tell ToI vetting process failed to identify pair accused of violence against Palestinians as dual nationals ineligible for targeting under executive order signed by US president
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Two US officials acknowledged to The Times of Israel that Washington didn’t properly vet some of the settlers it sanctioned last year, leading to the designation of two Israelis who also have US citizenship, which should have made them ineligible for targeting under an executive order signed by US President Joe Biden aimed at curbing rampant settler violence in the West Bank.
Issachar Manne, who was sanctioned in July, and Levi Yitzchak Pilant, who was sanctioned in August, are both US citizens, but they were identified in the US Treasury Department announcement as “foreign persons.”
The two US officials acknowledged to The Times of Israel that the administration’s vetting process failed to identify the pair as US citizens.
The Treasury Department and State Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Manne and Pilant have sued the US government, arguing that the sanctions violated their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection. They also note that they should have been ineligible for sanctions by virtue of their US citizenship.
The settlers’ legal team maintained in their lawsuit that by imposing the sanctions without a trial, the administration violated the dual citizens’ right to due process, as guaranteed in the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. They further suggested that the executive order itself could violate that provision, citing a 1972 ruling by the US Supreme Court that “vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning.”

In addition, the lawyers disputed that the accusations against their clients are true, and suggested that by mistakenly labeling Manne a “foreign person” — a term they argued is inconsistent with US citizenship — the administration demonstrated it can’t be trusted to ascertain the facts of the matter in this case.
The US said in its sanctions announcement last year that Manne, who operates a farm in the West Bank’s Hebron Hills, was connected to acts of violence against Palestinian civilians and efforts to dispossess Palestinians of their property.
The US alleged that Pilant, the security coordinator for the Yitzhar settlement, “engaged in malign activities outside the scope of his authority,” including leading a group of armed settlers in February 2024 to set up roadblocks and patrols to attack Palestinians and “forcefully expel them from their lands.”
Since Biden signed the executive order last February, 17 individuals and 16 entities have been designated in eight separate batches.
But this does not appear to be the first time that the Biden administration has slipped up in its sanction announcements under the executive order.

In July, the Treasury and State Departments designated the wrong Israeli man, confusing him with a similarly named far-right settler activist. After the mistake was identified in Israeli media, the US government corrected the error.
It’s unclear whether the lawsuit will be seen through, though, because US President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state Marco Rubio revealed earlier this week at his confirmation hearing that the incoming administration will end the Biden administration’s sanctions regime against allegedly violent Israeli settlers.
Biden authorized the sanctions amid mounting frustration over Israel’s longtime failure to clamp down on settler violence.
The Department for Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) has opened an investigation into Israel Police Commander Avishai Muallem, the head of the Judea and Samaria Police District’s investigations and intelligence department, relating to his alleged refusal to investigate Jewish nationalist crimes in the West Bank in the hopes of drawing favor in the eyes of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
In July, outgoing IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox lambasted settler leaders for failing to curb the violence, saying that some Israelis have adopted “the ways of the enemy.”