Biden administration sued over sanctions for Israeli settlers

By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) - Pro-Israel advocacy groups and dual U.S.-Israeli citizens have filed a lawsuit challenging President Joe Biden's order subjecting individuals involved in settler violence in the West Bank to financial and immigration sanctions.

The complaint filed in Amarillo, Texas, federal court on Tuesday says the executive order that Biden, a Democrat, issued in February violates the plaintiffs' free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitution and illegally interferes with the exercise of their religious beliefs.

The plaintiffs include Texans for Israel, a Christian nonprofit, Israeli nonprofit Regavim, the groups' leaders, and two dual U.S.-Israeli citizens who live in the West Bank and say they oppose the "two-state solution" favored by the Biden administration.

Biden's executive order allows federal agencies to impose financial sanctions and visa restrictions against individuals who attack or intimidate Palestinians or seize their property. The White House in issuing the order said it would "promote peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike."

But the new lawsuit claims the order more broadly penalizes anyone who opposes the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

"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," they said.

The White House and several federal agencies named as defendants in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump and one-time Christian legal activist whose court has become a favored destination for challenges to Biden administration policies.

In February, Kacsmaryk rejected the administration's bid to dismiss a lawsuit by a Republican congressman and three others seeking to block U.S. aid to the West Bank and Gaza that they said was unlawfully funding the Palestinian Authority.

The Biden administration has sanctioned several individuals, groups, and unauthorized settlements since issuing the executive order, including the wife of one of the plaintiffs in Tuesday's lawsuit.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)