(RNS) — On Friday, the U.S. State Department announced it would impose sanctions on Ben Zion Gopstein, the leader of Lehava, an extremist group in the West Bank that advocates for preserving Jewish ethnicity in Israel.
“Under Gopstein’s leadership, Lehava and its members have been involved in acts or threats of violence against Palestinians, often targeting sensitive or volatile areas,” the State Department said in a statement on Friday.
Also sanctioned were two fundraising groups, Mount Hebron Fund and Shlom Asiraich, which had attempted to raise funds for two other settler leaders who were sanctioned earlier this year.
Sanctions against anyone who undermined peace and security in the West Bank were legalized by a February executive order by President Joe Biden.
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The new sanctions come as violence increased in the West Bank in recent days, as Jewish settlers attacked several Palestinian towns in retribution for the kidnapping and murder of a Jewish teenager on April 13. At least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens more injured in the unrest.
Gopstein and Lehava had been accused of fomenting violence against Jewish-Arab peace initiatives, including a joint Hebrew-Arabic school in Jerusalem. Gopstein has also been criticized for inciting violence against Israel’s Christian minorities.
Gopstein was a disciple of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the Jewish Defense League in the United States and the Kach Party in Israel, both of which have been designated terror organizations in their respective countries. Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990.
In Israel, liberal and pluralistic Jewish groups have long advocated against Gopstein and Lehava’s activities.
“Lehava’s basic message is that Arabs are enemies of Israel and that contact with them will lead to disaster and to the kidnapping of Jewish girls to Arab villages,” according to a primer on hate groups published in 2014 by the Israel Religious Action Center. “The organization runs media campaigns designed to disseminate its ideology, including the distribution of flyers, newsletters, video clips, and media interviews.”
In 2015, while advocating for a ban on Christmas celebrations in Israel, Gopstein called Christians “the deadly enemy of the Jewish people for centuries,” saying Christian “missionaries prowl for prey in Jerusalem.”
Gopstein was convicted by Israel in January of this year after being indicted in 2019 for incitement to terrorism, violence and racism, blocking him from running for a Knesset seat with the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) Party, led by Itamar Ben Gvir.
Ben Gvir lashed out against the U.S. over the sanctions, saying, according to the Jerusalem Post, “The harassment of the Lehava organization and against dear settlers, who have never engaged in terrorism and have never harmed anyone, are the result of a blood libel by antisemitic, Israel-hating elements, those who for years have openly supported Hamas, Fatah, and anarchist organizations that harm IDF soldiers.
“I call on the countries of the West to stop cooperating with these antisemites, and to stop the campaign of persecution against settlers, pioneers, and Zionists,” he added.
