Six Democrats in the U.S. House will introduce a bill on Thursday calling for sanctions on foreign people and groups who help build or expand Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank and Gaza. The bill is written so broadly it could even hit senior Israeli government officials.
The bill is called the "Stop Settlements Act." Its sponsors are Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar of Texas, Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, Don Beyer of Virginia, Sara Jacobs of California and Veronica Escobar of Texas. More than 30 other House Democrats, including several long-serving members, have signed on as original co-sponsors.
Under the bill, sanctions would be mandatory for foreign people and groups that set up new settlements or outposts in the West Bank and Gaza, build in the E1 area, or help move Israeli citizens into settlements. It also allows sanctions against anyone who maintains or expands certain settlements and outposts that already exist. Penalties include freezing assets and denying or revoking U.S. visas.
The bill would also ban imports into the U.S. of goods made wholly or partly in Israeli settlements and outposts in the West Bank and Gaza. Until now, such goods only had to carry a label. U.S. citizens, including settlers who hold American citizenship, would not face the sanctions.
The bill does not say which places count as settlements — it leaves that decision to the executive branch. Past U.S. sanctions targeted specific people accused of violence or destabilizing acts in the West Bank. This bill instead takes aim at the construction itself.
E1 is a strategically sensitive strip of land east of Jerusalem, between the city and the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim. Critics say building there would make it harder to create a Palestinian state with connected territory. Supporters of the bill say settlement expansion pushes Palestinians out and lowers the odds of a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian deal, and several sponsors call the settlements a breach of international law. Israel rejects some of these claims and says the status of the territories should be settled through negotiations.
Castro said the bill gives people and companies a choice between settlement activity and access to the U.S. economy, and said he would keep pushing the issue "in the coming months and in the next Congress." J Street, a U.S. group that calls itself pro-Israel and pro-peace, backs the bill. It says that after decades of international opposition to the settlements, there need to be economic consequences.
The bill has little chance of passing in the current Congress, since Republicans control the House and Donald Trump is president. Its sponsors see it partly as groundwork for the next Congress. A senior Democratic Party figure said the outlook for such legislation will also depend on the outcome of Israel's elections and whether prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition stays in power. He said top Democrats' ability to block such bills "depends entirely on whether the current coalition carries on. If it does, these bills will pass."