US senator calls for sanctions against Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich

Chris Van Hollen has called for the Biden administration to sanction far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich due to his policies against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Earlier this year, Biden signed an executive order to impose sanctions on individuals "undermining peace, security, and stability" in the West Bank. So far, only four private Israeli citizens have been sanctioned under this order.

“Smotrich should be sanctioned under this EO,” Van Hollen stated.

Smotrich, the finance minister, has withheld tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority and declared 800 hectares (1,977 acres) of land in the occupied West Bank as Israeli state land in March.

“This is someone whose goal is essentially for Israel to take over the entire West Bank,” Van Hollen told the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank.