A Lawsuit by Christian Zionists Says Biden’s West Bank Sanctions Violate the First Amendment

In February, President Joe Biden issued an executive order that declared a “national emergency” in response to “high levels of extremist settler violence” in the West Bank and imposed economic sanctions on “persons undermining peace, security, and stability” there. Although he emphasized the threat posed by attacks on Palestinian civilians, his order extended much further, encompassing “any foreign person” whom the secretary of state or the secretary of the treasury deems “complicit” in actions that “threaten the peace, security, or stability of the West Bank.” Because the order prohibits “the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services” to a designated individual, it also applies to U.S. citizens.

According to a federal lawsuit that the Christian Zionist organization Texans for Israel filed this week, the broad sweep of those sanctions violates the First Amendment by punishing peaceful advocacy and activism. Biden’s order “makes it sanctionable for a person to ‘directly or indirectly’ harm ‘peace, security, or stability of the West Bank,'” says the complaint, which was filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. “This open-ended and vague provision empowers the Office of Foreign Assets Control within the Department of Treasury (‘OFAC’) to sanction anyone who acts contrary to what the Secretary of the Treasury determines advances the cause of ‘peace, security, or stability of the West Bank.’ This violates the First Amendment.”

A November memo regarding what Biden described as “visa bans against extremists attacking civilians in the West Bank” defined the targets broadly, saying they included anyone engaged in “actions that significantly obstruct, disrupt or prevent efforts to achieve a two-state solution.” Since the Biden administration has described settlement construction in the West Bank, a.k.a. Judea and Samaria, as “an obstacle to peace” that “make[s] a two-state solution more difficult to achieve,” it seems to view support for such activity as sanctionable. “This is the first and only sanctions regime where an Administration has deemed ordinary, peaceful activities and reasonable political positions supported by many Americans as inimical to ‘peace’ and therefore sanctionable,” the complaint says.

Texans for Israel “stands committed to wholeheartedly supporting the Jewish People in their ancestral homeland of Israel.” That mission includes “educat[ing] Texans about the importance of Israel” and “promot[ing] cultural exchange between the two regions.” It also includes “aid to individuals, organizations, and communities, focusing especially on those in the heartland of Israel: Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.”

In support of that mission, Texans for Israel President Michael Isley has “traveled to Judea and Samaria over 40 times,” done volunteer work on farms in the West Bank, and “cultivated a strong relationship with the Jewish community in Hebron.” He also has hosted several Israelis, including the spokesman for that community, at his home. The lawsuit says those visitors, “whom Mr. Isley and Texans for Israel support financially and whom they have invited to the United States for the purposes of education and fundraising,” “hold views and engage in activities, including First Amendment protected speech, that the Biden Administration would regard as ‘threaten[ing] peace and security’ in the Middle East.”

Isley shares those views. “One of our goals is to teach and tell our Christian friends to support Judea and Samaria,” he says. “It is the road on which the patriarchs walked.

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