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Israeli minister threatens to dismantle Palestinian Authority if Biden imposes sanctions

Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir calls potential sanctions against Israeli ministers a “severe violation of Israeli sovereignty.”

By World Israel News Staff

The Biden administration is reportedly weighing sanctions against Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism), in what would be an unprecedented punitive measure by Washington against high-ranking elected officials in Israel.

Several senior White House officials told Axios that sanctioning Ben-Gvir and Smotrich was discussed at a National Security Council meeting last week, following a recent announcement by the Israeli government that it had approved 5,000 new housing units in Jewish towns and cities in Judea and Samaria and had retroactively legalized five Jewish communities in the region.

According to the Axios report, the Biden administration considers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich to be “allied with extremist settler groups” and consider them to blame for increasing tensions in Judea and Samaria.

In recent weeks, the U.S. applied sanctions against several Israeli citizens, which led to the seizures of their bank accounts and other financial assets.

Washington also banned Elor Azaria – a former IDF soldier who served time in prison for shooting a wounded terrorist – and his family from entering the U.S.

Biden rejected a plan to sanction the ministers several months ago, saying that the U.S. should not use the measure against “elected officials in democratic countries,” according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to Axios.

However, the idea was once again floated in a meeting last Wednesday, and is now being seriously considered by the White House.

“The report that the Biden administration is considering imposing sanctions on me and the Finance Minister is serious,” said Ben-Gvir in a statement on Saturday evening. “The very act of imposing sanctions on Israeli citizens by the American administration, which has already begun, constitutes a severe violation of Israeli sovereignty.”

The minister continued by slamming the White House for funding “terrorist regimes like the Palestinian Authority that reward those who murder Jews with salaries.”

If the Biden administrations moves ahead with sanctioning him and Smotrich, Ben-Gvir warned that they will take steps to “completely dismantle the Palestinian Authority, including all its institutions and economy.”