US sanctions key settlement organization Amana for dispossessing Palestinians
Trump expected to reverse move, but it still sends signal to other Western countries that have already followed US in imposing sanctions against Israeli extremists in West Bank
The Biden administration on Monday sanctioned the Amana association, the settlement movement’s main development organization, in the latest in a series of punitive measures taken by the US against the settlement enterprise.
While the impact of the move was likely blunted by this month’s election of Donald Trump, who may well reverse such sanctions, it still sends a signal to other Western countries that have already followed the US in imposing similar sanctions against Israeli extremists in the West Bank for the past year. Amana was already sanctioned by the UK and Canada earlier this year.
The sanctions block any Amana assets based in US and crucially prevent US-based institutions, including Israeli banks, from providing services to the organization. They also bar US citizens and organizations from donating to it.
Along with Amana, the US State Department announced that Binyanei Bar Amana, a subsidiary of the association, had been designated by the Treasury Department, along with a smaller outpost construction firm, Eyal Harei Yehuda, and three individuals accused of providing assistance to other sanctioned individuals or organizations, or of being directly involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Amana is a key organization within the settler movement that has funded and assisted the establishment of numerous West Bank settlements and illegal settlement outposts.
Trump’s former ambassador to Israel David Friedman immediately criticized the sanctions, accusing the Biden administration of “interfering in an entirely domestic Israeli zoning issue.”
The head of the Yesha umbrella settlement organization, Yisrael Ganz, condemned the sanctions, accusing the administration of “strengthening the axis of evil,” and acting “against the Bible.”
Amana owns assets worth some NIS 600 million ($160.4 million) and has a budget of tens of millions of shekels a year, according to the Peace Now organization, which campaigns against the settlement movement.
According to Peace Now, Amana has assisted with and invested large sums of money in the establishment and support of numerous illegal farming outposts, including those currently under US sanctions.
“The United States is taking action today against three entities and three individuals for their roles in violence targeting civilians or in the destruction or dispossession of property,” said US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in announcing the sanctions on Monday.
“Their actions, collectively and individually, undermine peace, security, and stability in the West Bank and the safety of both Israelis and Palestinians.”
The US Treasury Department said in its statement that “the settlers and farms that Amana supports play a key role in developing settlements in the West Bank, from which in turn settlers commit violence.” It added that Amana “strategically uses farming outposts, which it supports through financing, loans, and building infrastructure, to expand settlements and seize land.”
The settlement movement has in recent years increasingly sought to establish so-called farming outposts, illegal dwellings inhabited by a handful of settlers who graze livestock on large tracts of land in Area C of the West Bank in order to establish control over them and push out local Palestinian herding communities.
The Treasury Department described Amana as “a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement” with ties to individuals sanctioned by the US “for perpetrating violence in the West Bank.” The department also noted that Amana had provided a loan to Isaschar Manne, who was sanctioned in a previous round of measures and who has been accused of harassing Palestinian herding communities in the South Hebron Hills region of the West Bank.
It also noted that Amana “served as a partner in the formation of Meitarim Farm,” an illegal outpost also in the South Hebron Hills region whose founder Yinon Levi, another sanctioned individual, has also been accused of serially harassing Palestinian herding communities in the area, leading to their displacement.
“Amana has established dozens of illegal settler outposts and directly engaged in dispossession of private land owned by Palestinians in its support of settlers,” the State Department said.
Along with Amana, the Eyal Hari Yehuda construction company was sanctioned for having supported the already-sanctioned Yinon Levi and his Meitarim Farm.
The three individuals sanctioned included Itamar Yehuda Levi, who owns Eyal Hari Yehuda and is Yinon Levi’s brother. Yinon Levi allegedly transferred ownership of the Eyal Hari Yehuda company to Itamar, in order to circumvent the sanctions the US imposed on him in February, and Itamar has also been accused of violence against Palestinians.
Another individual sanctioned was Shabtai Koshlevsky, the deputy director of the Hashomer Yosh organization, which organizes volunteers to work in illegal farming outposts and has itself been designated by the Treasury Department.
The third sanctioned individual was Zohar Sabah, who was indicted by Israel’s State Attorney’s Office in September for participating in a violent attack against Palestinians and activists in the West Bank village of Muarrajat, and who the Treasury Department implicated in other acts of violence and harassment against Palestinians.
Zohar runs an illegal farming outpost in the Jordan Valley region, another hotbed of settler violence against Palestinian herding communities.
The State Department concluded by saying it was “once again” calling on Israel to “take action and hold accountable those responsible for or complicit in violence, forced displacement, and the dispossession of private land.”
Peace Now welcomed the new sanctions.
“This is what an American government which truly supports Israel looks like,” the organization said. “Amana is an anti-Israel, messianic organization, which should be banned not only in the US, but first and foremost in Israel.”
In total, 17 individuals and 16 entities have been sanctioned through an executive order signed by US President Joe Biden last February, which allowed the US to target those destabilizing the West Bank, at a time of mounting frustration over Israel’s failure to crack down on settler violence.
