BY ASAF ELIA-SHALEVAUGUST 28, 2024 5:33 PM
The United States announced sanctions against a nonprofit that has received funding from the Israeli government as
well as the civilian security chief of a West Bank settlement. The sanctions are the United States’ latest effort to
curb extremism among settlers, and come as violence in the West Bank has escalated.
The nonprofit, Hashomer Yosh, was founded a decade ago with the stated mission of supporting and protecting
farms in Israeli West Bank settlements. In its announcement of sanctions on Wednesday, the State Department
accused the nonprofit of giving “material support” to an Israeli outpost and to settlers who are already under U.S.
sanctions, in addition to fencing off the Palestinian village of Khirbet Zanuta to prevent the return of 250 Palestinian
residents who had been driven off their land.
Also sanctioned on Wednesday was Yitzhak Levi Filant, the civilian security coordinator of the Yitzhar settlement
in the West Bank. The State Department accused him of “malign activities” including leading a group of armed
settlers in a February attack on Palestinians, aiming to expel them from their lands. The penalties announced
Wednesday were the latest round of several rounds of American sanctions to be placed on far-right Israeli settlers
and the groups aiding them. Over the course of this year, the State Department has sanctioned several individual
settlers, West Bank outposts, far-right organizations accused of supporting sanctioned individuals and a group that
has sought to block aid from entering Gaza.
The State Department says that these sanctions are intended to urge the Israeli government to hold its citizens
accountable when they commit violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. 
“Extremist settler violence in the West Bank causes intense human suffering, harms Israel’s security, and
undermines the prospect for peace and stability in the region,” the department said. “It is critical that the
Government of Israel hold accountable any individuals and entities responsible for violence against civilians in the
West Bank.”
This new round of sanctions comes amid escalating conflict in the West Bank, including an Israeli airstrike and
military operation in the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Tulkarm that has killed at least 10 people and prompted
Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, to call for civilian evacuations and post online that “This is a war.”
The Israeli military says that those killed in the ground operation were armed militants and that the airstrike targeted
a terrorist base. The Israeli government protested the sanctions, opposing what it perceives as inappropriate
American intervention into its own affairs.
“Israel views with utmost severity the imposition of sanctions on citizens of Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “The issue is in pointed discussion with the United States.”
Hashomer Yosh has received funding from Israel’s Agriculture Ministry and the Ministry of the Negev, Galilee, and
National Resilience, according to its public disclosure filings in Israel. In response to the sanctions, the group
claimed it is a lawful organization that supports Israeli agriculture.
“Sanctions on Hashomer are tantamount to sanctions on the State of Israel,” the organization said in a statement.
“Together we will stand strong and continue to support Hebrew farming in the Land of Israel.”
Historically, the U.S. government has reserved economic sanctions for rare cases, such as the communist regime in
Cuba. The Biden administration’s practice of sanctioning citizens of an allied country has surprised both supporters
and critics of Israel. However, recent reporting in the Washington Post indicates that the use of sanctions has quietly
become an increasingly common tool in American foreign policy in recent years.  J Street, the liberal Israel lobby,
praised the sanctions as sending “a message to the Netanyahu government and its extremist ministers.”

The statement by the group’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, added, “It recognizes the active role some Israeli officials
and security services are playing in supporting, encouraging and enabling settler violence. We cannot give them a
free pass as they threaten Palestinian families, undermine Israel’s security, and violate our core Jewish values of
peace, justice and equality.”