America is trying to peg Israel’s settlers back

At first the Israeli settlers in the West Bank tried to laugh off the executive order signed by Joe Biden, America’s president, on February 1st imposing sanctions on “persons undermining peace, security and stability in the West Bank”. The editor of a popular far-right website posted a cartoon of a Jewish shepherd in the West Bank. “What am I going to do now with all my assets in New York?” said the caption.

The laughter faded when Israeli banks began blocking the accounts of the settlers targeted by America’s sanctions regime. Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and himself an ultra-nationalist settler, vowed to prevent financial institutions from implementing the sanctions. But his power in this matter is negligible. “If anyone thinks that for the sake of a few settlers’ accounts Israeli banks are about to jeopardise their access to the global financial system controlled by the Americans, they’re in for a rude awakening,” said a senior banker.