The Green Party has called for tougher sanctions targeting Israeli politicians and military figures. Luise Amtsberg, the Green Party’s foreign policy spokesperson, told “Der Spiegel” that while sanctions against individual settler organizations were a positive step, they were insufficient.
Earlier that week, EU foreign ministers implemented new sanctions against three settlers and four settler organizations. However, attempts within the Foreign Council to suspend the EU’s association agreement with Israel or to sanction Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich failed to achieve a majority.
Amtsberg stated that those wishing to respond to the escalating violence and impunity demonstrated by radical settler groups must also impose sanctions on Ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich and move forward with the partial suspension of the EU association agreement.
Furthermore, Helge Limburg, the Green Party’s parliamentary spokesperson for legal policy, demanded sanctions against General Avi Bluth, who is responsible for the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Limburg told the news magazine that General Bluth’s own admission of committing war crimes in the West Bank must have consequences. He emphasized that the German government must impose personal sanctions not only on General Bluth, as the responsible general, but also on Ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who are deemed responsible for the escalation of violence.
