88 Democratic lawmakers urge Biden to sanction Ben Gvir and Smotrich

Eighty-eight Democratic lawmakers have signed onto a letter calling on US President Joe Biden to sanction far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich before he departs the White House in January.

Smotrich and Ben Gvir are “driving policies that promote settler violence, weaken the Palestinian Authority, facilitate de facto and de jure annexation, and destabilize the West Bank,” the House and Senate lawmakers argue in a letter sent on October 29 but made public today.

The Biden administration has weighed the unprecedented step in recent months, but has thus far held off on the move, with the president feeling the US should not be sanctioning officials from a democratic ally country, US officials have told The Times of Israel.

A move to sanction them would almost certainly be reversed by President-elect Donald Trump and it also comes with significant questions regarding enforcement. If Israel continues to pay the ministerial salaries of Smotrich and Ben Gvir, the government would be exposed to sanctions of its own, which is likely not the administration’s intention, given its support for the US-Israel relationship more broadly.

“Government leaders instigating violence must be subject to US sanctions… with radical officials in the Netanyahu government continuing to enable settler violence and enact annexationist policies, it is clear that further sanctions are urgently needed,” the letter states.

The signatories are largely made up of some of the more progressive Democrats in Congress, but they also include the more moderate Sen. Chris Coons as well as Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democratic appropriator who, this year, received the endorsement of a PAC affiliated with the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. Eight Jewish lawmakers are also among the signatories

JTA contributed to this report.