The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today welcomed the Stop the Settlements Act and urged Congress to pass the legislation as a necessary step toward stopping the Israeli government’s escalating campaign of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank.
CAIR said the legislation must be part of a broader congressional response to Israel’s illegal occupation and the official and unofficial campaigns of state-sanctioned violence against Palestinians, including Muslim and Christian Palestinian Americans.
Announced by Representatives Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Don Beyer (D-VA), Greg Casar (D-TX), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), and Veronica Escobar (D-TX), the bill would impose sanctions related to settlement construction and expansion and prohibit imports of goods produced wholly or partly in Israeli settlements and outposts, subject to a limited personal-baggage exception.
SEE: Congressional Announcement | Bill Text | One-Pager
In a statement, CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw said:
“We welcome the Stop the Settlements Act and thank its sponsors for taking steps to impose consequences on the Israeli government’s rapidly escalating ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. This legislation should receive widespread support and congressional leadership should prioritize its advancement—if not in this Congress, then the next one.
“The Israeli government’s settlement enterprise is a program of dispossession enforced through official military operations and campaigns of settler intimidation, destruction, and violence. Terrorist acts committed by Israeli settlers and soldiers must carry consequences from the United States, especially given that their violence is often carried out with political, financial and military support from our nation.
“Palestinians, including Palestinian Americans, have the right to live safely in their homes, practice their faith, cultivate their land, and travel without being attacked by settler terrorists armed with weapons provided by American taxpayers.
“The ethnic cleansing underway in the West Bank extends the assault on Palestinian life, freedom, and existence witnessed in Israel’s genocide and human rights violations in Gaza. This bill is necessary to disrupt that campaign by targeting those who build and sustain illegal settlements and denying settlement goods access to American markets.
“Congressional votes and legislative proposals are beginning to reflect growing demands for accountability. That change must now produce laws, sanctions, and an end to American military and diplomatic support for Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and illegal occupation.”
The bill specifically addresses construction and development in E1, east of Jerusalem. Settlement expansion there would further isolate occupied East Jerusalem from other Palestinian communities and undermine territorial continuity between the northern and southern West Bank.
The UN Human Rights Office has warned that E1 settlement expansion and associated road plans would place 18 established Palestinian communities at risk of displacement. It also reports that a proposed road would divert Palestinian traffic away from E1 while reserving the main Route 1 artery for Israeli traffic. CAIR said these measures illustrate how settlements and discriminatory infrastructure work together to entrench annexation and deny Palestinian self-determination.
Senators Chris Coons, Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Ruben Gallegohave introduced separate legislation targeting foreign actors involved in E1 settlement construction, including construction bidders and those arranging or financing transfers of Israeli civilians into E1 settlements.
CAIR also pointed to the 47 senators who voted to advance consideration of S. Res. 852, seeking a State Department report on Israeli human rights practices and Americans killed in the occupied West Bank. Although the effort was blocked 51–47, CAIR welcomed the vote as evidence of growing congressional willingness to challenge Israeli impunity.
An October 1 Palestine Chronicle report, citing OCHA figures, states that settler attacks and access restrictions have displaced more than 6,500 Palestinians since 2023, with 49 communities fully displaced and 83 partially displaced. The report also cites more than 6,000 settler attacks causing casualties, property damage, or both.
CAIR urged House members to cosponsor and pass the Stop the Settlements Act, senators to advance the E1 sanctions legislation and broader settlement restrictions, and congressional leaders to end policies that enable Palestinian dispossession and shield perpetrators from accountability.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, [email protected]; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, [email protected]; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, [email protected]