The Zionist NGO Regavim will be taking legal action against Canada and the EU following the imposition of sanctions, Naomi Kahn, director of the International Division at Regavim, told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, France, New Zealand, and Australia announced new sanctions against several individuals and organizations in the West Bank whom they accuse of violence against Palestinians. As part of the announcement, Canada also imposed sanctions on the Regavim Movement.
Regavim is a Zionist NGO dedicated to protecting Israel’s national lands and resources. It mainly acts to prevent illegal seizure of Israeli state land, and to protect the rule of law in matters pertaining to land-use policy in the State of Israel.
Unlike some of the other individuals and entities sanctioned yesterday, Regavim has never been accused of violence against Palestinians. Ironically, in fact, it is known for publishing a report debunking the very concept of settler violence.
“Sanctioning civil society organizations who have absolutely no connection to actual violence or were never accused of violence, have never been accused of any illegal activity whatsoever, is an attack on the state of Israel as a whole, and particularly in our case, it’s an attack on Israel’s judicial system,” Kahn told the Post.
Regavim sanctioned for lobbying for destruction of Palestinian property
The EU and Canada both said they sanctioned Regavim for “lobbying for the demolition of Palestinian property and an EU-funded Palestinian primary school at the Jabbet al Dhib village, near Bethlehem, in the West Bank.”
Kahn disputed this, saying, the school was an “illegal structure that was built by the European Union on Israeli state land in Area C, the area under Israeli jurisdiction, and the court found grounds to demolish that structure.”
“Now, that just means that they don’t like the court’s judgment, and that means that they’re sending a message, not very subtle, to Israel’s judges: ‘If you vote against the European Union’s activities, even though they’re illegal and everyone knows it, we will sanction you next, and we will sanction the entire state of Israel anytime they do something that we don’t like, even when it’s against the law [to sanction in a particular case],’” she said.
“It’s not a question of whether Regavim is or isn’t violent,” Kahn emphasized, “Of course it isn’t. We are a research think tank and policy and lobbying group.”
Kahn told the Post that Regavim considers it important to push back against this “entire affront to Israel’s integrity as a democracy with a functioning judicial system,” and against Israel’s sovereignty over territory over which is sovereign under international law
“This is an attack on Israel’s sovereignty, on its judiciary and on its legitimacy,” Kahn noted.
Thus, as mentioned, they will be taking immediate action to file an appeal and a counterclaim.
“First of all, there’s a bureaucratic process with all of these sanctions, in which you can appeal the decision to sanction you, so we’re going to do that – but it essentially has very little chance of succeeding. But in addition to that, we intend to file counter suits because this is a defamation,” he said.
“They are somehow including us in a list of people that they’re accusing of violence where there’s absolutely no proof, no hint, no involvement whatsoever in anything [we do] that could be construed as violent. They simply don’t like our political stance. So we’re going to be filing counter suits against this.”
In addition, Regavim will call on the government of Israel to push back against sanctions on the diplomatic playing field.
EU sanctions are attempt to clear path for Palestinian state, NGO says
Kahn believes that the sanctions are an attempt to clear the way for the creation of a Palestinian state. “And it is clear that Israeli voters, Israelis who actually live here and will have to pay the price of that sort of thing, do not support the creation of a Palestinian state,” she said.
Certainly not now, since the Palestinian Authority has been proven to support terrorism, continues to pay terrorists, and continues to encourage the eradication of the State of Israel. So there’s no peace partner. And by the European Union simply forcing this situation, they are endangering our lives.”
“Let’s just hypothetically propose that every single Jew decided to leave Judea and Samaria. Will that be enough? No, because that’s not really what they want, what they want really is to create a state of Palestine there.”
“Israelis know what the results of that will be. We saw it on October 7. We know that a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria will be the end of the state of Israel,” she concluded.