The United States is moving toward imposing new policies restricting entry to the country to “extreme settlers” in the West Bank who are “associated with violence,” officials said this weekend.
In a Sunday interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” U.S. deputy national security adviser Jonathan Finer expanded on President Biden’s op-ed from Saturday in which he mentioned potential consequences for those inflicting violence on innocent Palestinians.
“Look, the President has been extremely clear — I think far beyond even what many of his predecessors said — about our concerns about developments on the West Bank, and in particular, our concerns about violence perpetrated against innocent Palestinians by extreme settlers,” Finer said Sunday. “He said that in public speeches. He said that in an op-ed that was published just this weekend.”
“And as he indicated, and as we are now moving to operationalize, that could include consequences that the U.S. would impose on people associated with violence against innocents in the West Bank — including a ban on them being able to travel to the United States on visas,” Finer added.
“And we’re moving in that direction, and we’ll have more to say about that, I’m sure, in the coming days,” Finer said.
Finer’s comments come after the president penned an op-ed in The Washington Post this weekend in which he outlined several potential policy solutions moving forward in order to end violence in the region. He stressed the need for a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine and denounced the Israeli settlers’ alleged attacks on innocent Palestinians, especially in the West Bank.
“I have been emphatic with Israel’s leaders that extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank must stop and that those committing the violence must be held accountable,” he wrote. “The United States is prepared to take our own steps, including issuing visa bans against extremists attacking civilians in the West Bank.”