Naomi Linder Kahnis the Director of the International Division of Regavim, an Israeli think-tank dedicated to the preservation of Israel’s land resources and sovereignty.
Regavim's credo: "We are proud to be the vanguard of discourse that recognizes the right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel, and we will continue to advocate for equal and universal law enforcement."
Late last week, journalist Barak Ravid reported on Walla! that a group of 15 US Senators and 68 members of the House of Representatives - all from the Democratic Party - sent a letter to President Biden calling on him to impose sanctions on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. In addition, they called for imposition of sanctions on the Regavim Movement, on the grounds that Regavim’s “incitement” has resulted in violence, and Regavim’s activities seek to “prevent Palestinian construction in the 'West Bank'” - “actions that resulted in the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes.”
Today, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on three Israeli private companies involved in building in Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria. This represents the first time that a private company has been sanctioned for its involvement in expanding Israeli construction.
The sanctions imposed by the Biden Administration on civil society organizations, based solely on their political orientation, is tantamount to a ban on free speech. This is the definition of dictatorship. The outgoing administration has imposed sanctions on a host of Israeli individuals and organizations at the forefront of the settlement enterprise, as well as grassroots protest movements whose only “sin” is their opposition to current US policy.
The Regavim movement is very proud to lead the discourse that recognizes the right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel. We are proud of our 18 years of legal action aimed at promoting equal law enforcement, whether or not any particular government or administration agrees or disagrees, whether ally or adversary.
The use of the sanctions regime, usually reserved for last-ditch action against drug lords, internationally sanctioned criminals, terrorists and dictators, against ordinary citizens of an allied democracy is unprecedented. It is an outright attack against freedom of speech and dissent, and it is a disgrace to the Biden Administration.
The very specific timing chosen by the signatories should not be overlooked: The lame ducks in Congress are using their final moments of power to try to amplify and expand the most anti-democratic maneuver of the Biden Administration. As a result of the sanctions imposed under Executive Order 14115, President Biden will be judged by history for the bald-faced attempt to prevent public debate, to silence political opponents, to deny freedom of speech and to make reasoned debate impossible.
Now, members of Congress seek to take this outrage to even more profound depths while marketing it as a means of promoting “stability in the Middle East.” Apparently, the American public understood full well that these same members of Congress were not worthy of their support or their trust. They saw through the virtue signaling, recognized the Democrats as a threat to democracy, and sent them a clear message from the ballot box.
The Democrats' use of their final moments in power to stifle democratically elected members of the Israeli government is a transparent attempt to impose the very ideology that US voters rejected earlier this month: colonialist manipulation of Israel’s democratic process, and imposition of the Obama-Biden vision of a genocidal Palestinian Arab state in the heart of the Land of Israel. Sanctioning Regavim will attempt to quash the facts and the legal arguments that we present – but it will fail.
We will not be silenced.