Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Monday that the European Union’s attempt to impose political views on Jerusalem through sanctions on Jews living in Judea and Samaria “is unacceptable and will not succeed.”
Israel “firmly rejects” the E.U. decision, describing it as “arbitrary” and “political,” Sa’ar said.
The Israeli official decried the “outrageous” comparison between Israeli citizens and Hamas terrorists. “This is a completely distorted moral equivalence,” he stated.
The E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stated earlier that her organization “just gave the go-ahead to sanction Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians.” She added that it had “also agreed new sanctions on leading Hamas figures.”
“It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery,” Kallas said. “Extremisms and violence carry consequences.”
“Israel has stood, stands and will continue to stand for the right of Jews to settle in the heart of our homeland,” Sa’ar responded. “No other people in the world has such a documented and longstanding right to its land as the Jewish people have to the Land of Israel.”
“This is a moral and historical right that has also been recognized by the law of nations, and no actor can take it away from the Jewish people,” he stated.
Earlier on Monday, Ireland’s national public service broadcaster reported that according to E.U. officials, “seven settlers or settler organizations” were set to be blacklisted, and that the bloc was also preparing sanctions against representatives of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Accusations of Israeli “settler violence” against Arabs in Judea and Samaria are part of what Israeli officials, experts, military sources and activists describe as a long-running, well-funded and coordinated campaign aimed at delegitimizing the State of Israel and its residents in the region.
None of the sources denied that Jewish violence exists but said it is less widespread than portrayed in the media, involves fewer incidents than reported, is broadly condemned and is carried out by a relatively small number of individuals.
An April 2026, Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security position paper by Brig. Gen. (res.) Erez Winner and Col. (res.) Gabi Siboni describes the campaign as a “modern-day blood libel” against the State of Israel.
