US anti-settler sanctions barely scratch the surface

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This week’s US sanctioning of an Israeli-government-backed vigilante settler group constitutes a weak shot across Israel’s bow as the United States and Europe mull also sanctioning ultra-nationalist members of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.

Senior executives of the sanctioned group, Hashomer Yosh, which focuses on protecting settler outposts in the occupied West Bank, have close ties to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the two cabinet members that the US and Europe may sanction. Messrs. Ben Gvir and Smotrich themselves are settlers.

The Biden administration announced the sanctions as Israel launched its largest military campaign in the West Bank in more than two decades, targeting Palestinian militants, according to the military.

Palestinians fear the raids signal an expansion of the Gaza war to the West Bank.

While sending a signal, the sanctioning of Hashomer Yosh barely scratches the surface in a country in which ultra-nationalists pursue annexationist and supremacist policies with Mr. Netanyahu’s approval, albeit at times tacitly, and where blood-curdling anti-Palestinian statements by government officials, lawmakers, and pundits are part of the daily political diet.

The administration could have sent a far stronger signal if it had acted against Messrs. Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who have backed and encouraged vigilante settler attacks on West Bank Palestinians and Israeli military officers and units that protect the militants as they launch their assaults.