The United States placed sanctions on an Israeli settler group on August 28. The Departments of State and Treasury accused Hashomer Yosh of supporting extremist violence against Palestinians. Yosh provides security to Israeli settler-run farms in the West Bank.

The U.S. implicates Yosh in supporting Meitarim Farm. The U.S. sanctioned Meitarim Farm in January in response to Palestinians forcibly being evicted from their village.

Unrest between Palestinians and Jewish settlers is a sensitive issue even in Israel itself. But the timing of the sanctions suggests an ulterior agenda on America’s part.

The Palestinian village incident happened a month after 2023’s October 7 massacre. Meitarim Farm was sanctioned at the beginning of the year. Hashomer Yosh works with much more land than just Meitarim Farm. Now America may treat anybody connected to Hashomer Yosh as a war criminal.

Why did the U.S. decide to act now?

“Already Prepared”

Michael Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He alleged in an August 12 Tablet article that Joe Biden has an interdepartmental “sanctions team” to go after controversial Israelis. He singled out the Treasury and State Departments as primary branches involved. Doran, who used to work for the Department of Defense, cites anonymous government connections. The Trumpet previously covered Doran’s allegations.

Doran claimed Biden tasked this team to roll “packages of sanctions with regularity. By my count, six tranches have been rolled out so far. The next tranche, I have learned, is already prepared, waiting for release after Iran attacks Israel, so that the administration can dodge the accusation of weakening Israel in time of war.”

Iran vowed retaliation after the assassinations of Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr and Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh in late July. While Iran has yet to launch retaliation over Haniyeh’s death in Tehran, Hezbollah claimed vengeance August 25 in a rocket barrage.

Three days later, as Doran predicted, the sanctions came out.

“The regularity of the rollouts, which average about one tranche per month, matter to the administration more than the specific content of the sanctions,” continued Doran. “The goal is not to reverse any policy by the Israeli government, but to create a climate of controversy around [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners.”

Removing a Rival

America—when controlled by Democrats—has opposed Netanyahu’s conservative vision for Israel for years. But this opposition increased dramatically after Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack. Doran claims Biden created this sanctions team in response to October 7. “The attack generated the fear in Washington,” he wrote, “that the resulting war would strengthen the Israeli right.”

The latest sanctions are a window into how the U.S. government is trying to oust Netanyahu. But they’re far from the government’s only methods. Joe Biden and Barack Obama are guilty of funding anti-Netanyahu groups, marginalizing Israel in the United Nations, and empowering enemies like Iran. During the war, the U.S. has done everything it could to throw Hamas lifelines and pressure Israel to stand down. The question is, why?

This goes beyond a mere liberal-conservative spat. There is a deeper reason why the U.S. seems to be meddling more in the affairs of the State of Israel than any other ally. Netanyahu for decades has been the biggest obstacle to making a “fundamentally transformed” Middle East a reality. America’s pressure on the State of Israel has everything to do with this.

We wrote in the cover story of our August print issue:

What Obama wants is an immediate and unilateral withdrawal by Israel from Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Nominally, the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, would take over as the new state’s government. But Abbas is a corrupt autocrat who runs half his realm as his personal fiefdom and has lost control of the other half to terrorist groups. Most Palestinians want him gone. Hamas, by contrast, is gaining popularity on the street. And any “ceasefire” deal would legitimize Hamas internationally.

Gaza is a deadly thorn in Israel’s side. But a Hamas-ruled West Bank would be a catastrophic nightmare; the next war in the Middle East would be far bigger, longer and bloodier. If this ceasefire is adopted, Hamas would be capable of a Holocaust on the same scale as the Nazis. Everybody knows this. Obama knows this.

It seems irrational that the U.S. would push to attack Israel for this end. But there are bigger issues than mere geopolitical chess maneuverings. To learn more, read “Who Is Behind the War on Netanyahu.”