Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded today (Sunday) to reports that the Biden administration was considering sanctioning him and National Defense Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on the grounds that they were "undermining" security in Judea and Samaria with their support of the settlement movement.
"At the personal level, I am no different from Reut Ben Haim (leader of the Tzav Tesha protest movement) or any other settler who was hit with draconian and undemocratic American sanctions," Smotrich said.
"This is an unfortunate decision deriving from the internal political needs of those who claim to lead the greatest democracy in the world and who act with clearly anti-democratic tools against a strong partner which is the only democracy in the Middle East."