Trump Lifts Settler Sanctions, West-Bank Violence Explodes

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Robert Inlakesh reports on the wave of Israeli attacks in the West Bank this week following Trump’s lifting of settler sanctions and the role of U.S. donors in enabling messianic-settler extremism.

Israeli military operation in the West Bank, July 3, 2023. (IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Wikimedia Commons,CC BY-SA 3.0)

By Robert Inlakesh
MintPress News

On his first day in office, Donald Trump lifted all sanctions previously placed on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, a political move that coincided with a series of violent attacks by Israeli settlers targeting Palestinians that same night.

While the president has publicly committed to combating violent extremism, extremist settler groups continue to finance their activities through American charities.

On Monday night, with the backing of the Israeli military, settler groups launched a series of violent assaults on residents in the West Bank. The most severe attacks occurred in two villages near Qalqilya, where masked settlers set fires and fired indiscriminately.

Amid the chaos, Israeli soldiers deployed tear gas against villagers attempting to flee, leaving 21 people injured.

2008 map of a portion of the West Bank showing Qalqilya and Hableh enclaves. (CIA derivative work, Zero0000, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Amidst the wave of violence, an Israeli police officer mistakenly shot two masked settlers, believing them to be Palestinians. One was killed instantly. In the aftermath, Israeli authorities imposed a complete lockdown on the West Bank, leaving civilians stranded in their cars and on the streets.

The following day, Israel announced a major military operation targeting the northern West Bank, beginning with an assault on the Jenin Refugee Camp.

Defense Minister Israel Katz dubbed the campaign “Operation Iron Wall,” vowing to crush the growing number of anti-occupation resistance groups that have expanded in the region since 2021.

The operation, Katz declared, would draw upon Israel’s “method of repeated raids in Gaza” to achieve its objectives.

Katz, left, in November 2024, with his predecessor Yoav Galant. (Spokesperson and Public Relations Division of the Ministry of Defense of Israel, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

On Jan. 17, the Washington-based advocacy group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) released a report accusing Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund and its subsidiaries of funding illegal settlement expansion and encouraging violence against Palestinian civilians. According to the report, the Israeli-registered entities use affiliates in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. to raise money.

DAWN has called on the U.S. government to impose sanctions on the organizations it accuses of funding Israeli settler extremism. However, they are far from the only entities using American donations to support such activities.

An investigation by Haaretz revealed that the Temple Institute — an organization with the stated goal of demolishing the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, to construct a Jewish synagogue in its place — has received financial backing from a prominent U.S. donor closely linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Through platforms like America Gives, a partner of Israel Gives, Americans can make tax-deductible donations directly to the Temple Institute. The organization, which has previously relied on donations for half of its funding, benefits from this streamlined flow of contributions, and it’s not the only one.

In 2019, The Nation magazine exposed a network of U.S.-registered non-profit organizations that have been used to finance Israeli extremists.

The role of U.S. citizens and their donations in enabling messianic-extremist settler movements cannot be overstated. However, the Trump administration has adopted one of the most hardline pro-settler positions in American history, a stance made abundantly clear by the individuals selected to fill key cabinet roles.

On Tuesday, during her confirmation hearing, Trump’s nominee for U.N. ambassador, Elise Stefanik, declared her belief that Israel possesses a “biblical right” to the entirety of the occupied West Bank. When pressed, she refused to affirm that Palestinians have a right to self-determination.

This comes as little surprise given the financial entanglements at the heart of the Trump campaign. The campaign’s top financier, Miriam Adelson — Israel’s wealthiest billionaire — pledged $100 million to support the former president. According to Haaretz, the contribution came with a clear understanding: Trump would allow Israel to annex the West Bank.

Trump’s very own son-in-law and close confidant, Jared Kushner, has well-known ties to the financing of illegal settlements. The Kushner Foundation funneled money not only to the West Bank settlement of Beit El, but to an extremist Yeshiva (Jewish religious school) located in a settlement near Nablus.

This Yeshiva, infamous for hosting extremist rabbis who help organize violence against Palestinians, has been linked to incendiary rhetoric, including providing religious justification for the murder of Arab children.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker cbased in London. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show “Palestine Files.” Director of “Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe.” Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

This article is from MPN.news, an award winning investigative newsroom.  Sign up for their newsletter.

Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

9 comments for “Trump Lifts Settler Sanctions, West-Bank Violence Explodes

  1. Robert E. Williamson Jr.
    January 25, 2025 at 20:16

    I refuse to bear witness to the ongoing genocide in the regions where the IDF operate.

    It is what it is and the U.S., everyday day it lingers in the shadows supplying weapons to the aggressors, is digging the hole it is in deeper. Congress is pathetically conflicted, inept and complicit in being absent without leave in the face of an ongoing genocidal slaughter. No one in their right mind can argue it isn’t.

    Congress needs to wake the hell up and smell the death.

    My Dog, what have we become as humans to allow this to continue in our names and in the name of the United States of America!

    Shamefully disgusting behavior by people in a country who know damned well better. Call congress and give them what the deserve. A stern lecture about the difference between right and wrong.

    • Robert E. Williamson Jr.
      January 26, 2025 at 21:00

      I been busy. I always am at the end of the week, the cut off for comments here gets me quite often, it is what it is. But for clarity and truth I must beg CN humor me here. At least the moderator will know this was thought out.

      Caitlin Johnston: Biden Was Just As Bad , Bob J. Johnson’s comments Jan21, 2025 @13:46 he writes the Democrats complain about the Trump having an insider billionaire while Biden was supported by several mega donors. I am more than willing to point out to him he has made a distinction with little or no difference. Mr. Johnson also seemed to dwell on the Biden’s administrations support on the genocide in Gaza while remaining silent on any references to POTUS DJT an his unfettered support of all things Israel and apparently Netynyahoo.

      I generally try to make my positions crystal clear. As in my comment above Jan 25, 2025 @20:16, I especially wish to point out the last three sentences I wrote above.

      The first could be addressed to Mr. Johnson specifically and rightfully so. Claiming the democrats supported the genocide in Gaza is very telling Sir. Do you imply POTUS DJT does not or did not support the same ‘genocide’ as you yourself described it.

      It is, what it is Sir, and as I stated above “Shamefully disgusting behavior by people in a country who should know damned well better”.

      My second point is to what I described as a stern lecture to congress members about the difference between right and wrong.

      Like I said above, “Congress needs to wake the hell up and smell the death!”

      I would like to take this opportunity to remind you and everyone else about a quote from the late Daniel Moynihan who passed away March 26, 2003 – Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. Omitting facts or neglecting to include them should not be tolerated, IMHO.

      No debate needed, only the facts need be considered here, IMHO, Sir! I damned sure meant what I wrote about congress and it being a duopoly!

      Back to my claim about people who should know better engaging in disgusting behavior.

      May I point out, if you in fact support POTUS 47 and you still claim your criticism of the Democrats, who’s actions and in actions in Gaza I dispise myself, you have negated your ability to claim any ‘high road’ here. As I wrote earlier your ” distinction without a difference” is absent a valid point.

      I will forgo the stern lecture. I think I’ve seen enough to understand I can explain it to you, however I cannot understand it for you.

  2. Bob N
    January 25, 2025 at 14:48

    Evidentially the sanctions, whatever they were, in place, did not work. I’m frankly, surprised that the ball less biden had any in; he, always being a corporate whore his whole career.

    Can we have a leader who won’t fund bombing babies to bits?

  3. Lois Gagnon
    January 25, 2025 at 09:49

    This genocidal empire needs to fall before the Palestinians have a chance of achieving justice. Israel is very much an integral part of the empire. It cannot survive without it. The whole of humanity cannot continue to tolerate this empire. The big obstacle standing in the way of its dismantling is the nukes.

  4. Realist
    January 25, 2025 at 00:45

    The Palestinians have a right to defend themselves. The Israelis should never again be allowed to commit genocide against these people whom they have slaughtered wholesale, stealing lands and livelihoods from numerous generations, while murdering their children at their fathers’ sides and their mothers’ breasts.

    We American taxpayers also have a right to be dissociated from these crazed religious mass murderers who make all our fellow citizens seem like guilty co-conspirators because our financial resources and unstoppable military power make all these hellacious sins possible. Rather, we pitiful cowards who want no part of these wars are deceitfully portrayed as co-conspirators (dyed-the-wool “Zionists”) by our disgusting national leadership from both parties.

  5. anaisanesse
    January 24, 2025 at 17:58

    Is there any hope for any of the Palestinians anywhere? Why do the People of the USA support such representatives and media that let this worsen all the time? How do people like Adelson live with themselves?

  6. Drew Hunkins
    January 24, 2025 at 15:46

    The Trump admin is freezing all foreign aid, to every nation, apparently. But of course, NOT to the racist Entity; that “aid” spigot is flowing freely and voluminously.

  7. Vera Gottlieb
    January 24, 2025 at 15:07

    I get SICK TO MY STOMACH seeing pictures of all this murderous hypocrites! The same fate should befall them…

    • julia eden
      January 24, 2025 at 16:52

      will we ever succeed
      in eradicating hatred
      of others and greed?

Comments are closed.