The Biden administration expanded its sanctions on Israelis on Tuesday, even as Israel faced attacks from Hezbollah and Iran, listing new sanctions against “Hilltop Youth,” an organization that does not actually exist.
As Breitbart News has reported, the Biden administration has sanctioned a broad range of Israelis and Israeli organizations on the political right, at the behest of left-wing anti-Israel organizations, since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. These sanctions have targeted people who have not been accused of of any crimes; they have also often targeted what would be, in the United States, constitutionally protected protest or political activity.
The U.S. Treasury announced Tuesday that it was sanctioning an “extremist settler group” called “Hilltop Youth”:
Today, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating Hilltop Youth, a violent extremist group that has repeatedly attacked Palestinians and destroyed Palestinian homes and property in the West Bank, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14115. Through these violent activities, Hilltop Youth is actively destabilizing the West Bank and harming the peace and security of Palestinians and Israelis alike. Hilltop Youth has devastated Palestinian communities and carried out killings, mass arson, and other so-called “price tag” attacks to exact revenge and intimidate Palestinian civilians, and has repeatedly clashed with the Israeli military as it counters their activities.
The problem: there is no actual organization called “Hilltop Youth,” which the Treasury appeared to acknowledge in a backhanded way by explaining that it was applying the sanctions to two individual Israeli settlers.
Criticism was swift:
Sanctions are a core component of the anti-Israel, antisemitic “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” (BDS) movement. Officially, the Biden-Harris opposes BDS; practically, however, it is implementing the BDS agenda.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
