Online fundraisers for violent West Bank settlers raised thousands, despite international sanctions
After the Biden administration applied sanctions on four Israeli settlers for acting violently toward Palestinians and activists in the West Bank, online fundraisers sprang to their aid
JERUSALEM — When the Biden administration imposed sanctions this month against Israeli settler Yinon Levi for allegedly assaulting Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, his supporters quickly sprang into action.
Within days, an online fundraiser collected over $140,000 for Levi and his unauthorized settler outpost from over 3,000 donors worldwide. Now, those contributions may be putting donors, crowdfunding sites and the financial services firms that process the payments at risk of penalties for violating the U.S. sanctions.
“It’s not even a close call,” said Britt Mosman, a former attorney at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the U.S. government agency that enforces sanctions.
She said any American who donates money to a sanctioned person or group puts themself at risk. “It is a pretty straightforward application of the sanctions prohibitions,” she said.
Levi is among seven hard-line settlers targeted this month by the U.S. and Britain for alleged attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. The sanctions prevent them from accessing the U.S. financial system and expose them to an asset freeze, as well as travel and visa bans in the U.K. Israeli banks froze the settlers’ personal bank accounts in response.
In Levi’s case, funds from the crowdsourcing campaign, raised on the Israeli website Givechak, were collected by a nonprofit under the auspices of the Israeli settler council in the area.
“A few days ago, Yinon Levi’s accounts were confiscated in a scandalous decision,” read a note on the fundraising page before it
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