New Lawsuit Aims To Hold Blinken, Yellen Accountable for Biden’s Sanctions on Jewish-Americans in Judea and Samaria

The filing of a federal civil complaint at the District of Columbia by two American-Israeli citizens living in Judea and Samaria sanctioned by President Biden could signal a looming constitutional clash. It could be, though, that their most expeditious prayer for relief is an executive reversal from President-elect Trump.The complaint on behalf of Levi Yitzchak Pilant and Issachar Manne — who are represented by, among other attorneys, Mark Goldfeder of the National Jewish Advocacy Center — names as defendants Secretaries Blinken and Yellen as well as the director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, Lisa Palluconi. It accuses those officials — in their official capacities — of violating the due process rights of Messrs. Pliant and Manne. The plaintiffs also allege violations of the Administrative Procedures Act. At the core of the case is Executive Order 14115, which President Biden signed on February 1 of last year. That order declares that the situation in the West Bank — “in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction” — has reached “intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region.”The order provides for financial sanctions and a visa ban on anyone sanctioned, a cohort that initially included three individuals as well as one company, Amana, which the White House described as “the largest organization involved in settlement and illegal outpost development in the West Bank.” Dozens of Democrats have pressured the administration to sanction the Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich under the order.Messrs. Pliant and Manne have both been sanctioned under the executive order, and they both challenge that designation as American citizens. They argue that “the only individuals who have been sanctioned are Jews, notwithstanding that In 2024 alone, there were 1,040 major Palestinian attempts on Jewish life.” They argue that amounts to discrimination on the basis of religion. The plaintiffs acknowledge that “the Administration has sanctioned a Palestinian terrorist group called the ‘Lion’s Den’” but contend that “it has not sanctioned a single Palestinian or non-Jewish individual. Notably, the Lion’s Den has been largely dormant for over a year, and has no known bank accounts, so noactual asset freezes appear to have resulted from the action.”The core of the claim for constitutional injury is that “despite the EO’s facially neutral language, the Administration has made clear by its words and actions that only Jewish individuals are at risk of being sanctioned … This creates a clear denial of Equal Protection to American citizens in the West Bank.”The administration argues that Mr. Pliant, who is the civilian security coordinator at a settlement called Yitzhar, “led a group of armed settlers to set up roadblocks and conduct patrols to pursue and attack Palestinians in their lands and forcefully expel them from their lands.” Mr. Pliant argues that the “The State Department’s accusations are entirely false” and can be sourced to “Democracy forArab World Now (‘DAWN’), an organization whose board members have ties to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood and have praised Hamas.”Mr. Pliant, who was born at Pittsburgh, reckons that “in the three months after Oct. 7th, there were 101 significant terror attacks in the Northern West Bank alone (where Yitzhar is located), almost all of them shootings.” He contends that he is being sanctioned for working to protect his community. He maintains that he “has never engaged in violence against Palestinians at any time.”The Biden administration accuses Mr. Manne of building an “outpost” in the South Hebron Hills that is “established on pastureland belonging to the Palestinian community, and settlers from this outpost regularly attack community shepherds and prevent their access to pastureland through acts of violence.” He maintains that he “has never appropriated, nor has he sought to appropriate, land under private Palestinian ownership.”The plaintiffs note that the language used to sanction Mr. Manne appears to track verbiage found in a 2021 report from a left-wing organization, B’Tselem, that mentioned “[v]iolence by settlers from the farm has significantly limited the pastureland used by local Palestinian shepherds.” B’Tselem, though, “failed to actually identify any of these allegedly violent settlers.”Messrs. Pliant and Manne both attest that they have had bank accounts and credit cards frozen, that they have been unable to make mortgage payments, and that they have suffered reputational harm. They seek financial and injunctive relief, as well as attorneys fees and other associated costs. The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment ordains that “no person shall. . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” They also cite the Supreme Court case of United States v. Marks, from 1977, which holds that “the notion that persons have a right to fair warning of that conduct which will give rise to penalties is fundamental to our concept of constitutional Liberty.” They argue they have been denied such notice.The plaintiffs insist that the Biden administration “has deprived them of a life interest by … penalizing them for defending their lives against Palestinian terrorists; a liberty interest by … severely restricting with whom they can conduct business … and a property interest by causing their financial accounts and lines of credit to be frozen.” Messrs. Manne and Pliant urge the district court to give no deference to executive prerogative. On the contrary, they assert, Mr. Biden’s order “is subject to strict scrutiny because they were sanctioned in a broader context whereby only Jewish and/or Israeli individuals are being sanctioned.”

New Lawsuit Aims To Hold Blinken, Yellen Accountable for Biden’s Sanctions on Jewish-Americans in Judea and Samaria

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