(WASHINGTON, DC – 12/5/2023) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed visa restrictions that would bar some Israeli settlers who have engaged in violence against Palestinians from entering the United States.
CAIR also called for sanctions against extremist Israeli leaders like Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli Minister of National Security, who has encouraged and enabled settler violence. Ben-Gvir also oversees the Israeli prison guards who have allegedly been torturing and threatening Palestinians taken hostage in recent weeks.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the State Department will impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
SEE: In a rare action against Israel, US says extremist West Bank settlers will be barred from America
Israel has killed more than 16,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children in Gaza and the West Bank in recent weeks. Many more have been killed by Israeli occupation forces and illegal settlers in the West Bank.
In a statement, CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said:
“The State Department has taken a symbolic step in the right direction by imposing a visa ban on some of the Israeli settlers responsible for a campaign of ethnic cleansing and murder in the West Bank.
“However, Secretary Blinken must take concrete action to address the source of the problem: the far-right, racist Netanyahu government. Settlers are murdering Palestinians with support from Israeli officials like Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose forces are also literally kidnapping, threatening and torturing Palestinians in the West Bank.
“The United States should impose travel bans on Ben-Gvir and other extremist Israeli officials, stop providing material support to the Netanyahu government, and examine legal avenues to file criminal charges against both the settlers and officials responsible for attacking Palestinian-Americans in the West Bank.”
Earlier today, CAIR condemned the shooting of an unarmed Palestinian man in the West Bank and an Israeli attack on another hospital in Gaza and said the Biden administration is actively participating in Israel’s “ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people.”
[NOTE: The Washington Post confirms that premature babies were left to die in a Gaza hospital after Israeli forces ordered the building evacuated. CAIR previously called for UN and U.S. probes of Israel’s actions after horrifying video showed the babies’ decaying corpses, partially eaten by stray dogs.]
Yesterday, CAIR condemned another “war crime of the day” – the slaughter of at least 50 civilians in airstrikes on two UN-run schools sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza.
Mitchell noted that the Israeli government’s extremist leaders have declared that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza, justified cutting off water, electricity and other basic necessities because Palestinians are ‘human animals,’ embraced an ancient biblical verse about the mass slaughter of an entire city from animals to infants, demanded a million residents of northern Gaza leave their homes or face death, and announced that the aim of the bombing in Gaza was destruction rather than accuracy.
CAIR said a new report by Heritage for Peace detailing Israel’s ongoing destruction of Palestinian cultural sites shows its desire to entirely “eliminate Palestinian existence.”
Washington, D.C., based CAIR also questioned whether Western leaders even regard Palestinians as “human” after more than 700 women, children and men were massacred by Israel within just the last 24 hours.
Previously, CAIR condemned the latest “Israeli war crime of the day” after more than 100 men, women and children were killed in the bombing of residential buildings hosting displaced families in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp.
CAIR also condemned the Biden administration for giving the Israeli government the “green light” to resume bombing Gaza and called on the United States to join other governments in demanding the resumption of the ceasefire and negotiations to secure a just, lasting peace.
[NOTE: More than 100,000 Americans have used CAIR’s action alert to contact their members of Congress and call for an end to the violence and the renewal of U.S.-led efforts to end the occupation. SEE: Urge Your Members of Congress to Address Root Cause of Mideast Violence]
CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
La misión de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprensión del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com, CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com