When the European Union issued its latest tranche of sanctions against Israeli settler groups and their leaders, Regavim, founded in part by the country's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, welcomed the measures as a 'badge of honour.'

Another sanctioned figure, Daniella Weiss, whose movement Nachala has held conferences on the Gaza border to discuss plans for settlement expansion into the occupied Palestinian territory, likewise dismissed the European penalties as 'ridiculous' and 'banal.'

In total, the EU sanctioned four entities and three individuals associated with the settler movement, including Weiss, Regavim and its director Meir Deutsch, and the Amana cooperative association, which offers logistical and financial support to settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Even government figures have been targeted in recent Western actions. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a son of the settler movement, was sanctioned by the United Kingdom, Canada and several other countries for his alleged role in supporting or enabling violence in the West Bank.

The nonchalant response from the targeted figures suggests that none of the EU measures will stop settlement expansion or hold individuals accountable for the growing wave of violence against Palestinians. Analysts say the largely toothless measures might instead become a source of domestic prestige for their leaders.

Following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, UN and human rights monitors have documented systemic lethal settler attacks in places such as the South Hebron Hills, where residents of villages like Susiya and Umm al-Khair have been killed or seriously injured in collective incursions. Entire Bedouin herding communities in the Jordan Valley have also been forcibly displaced.

'The violence does not happen in a vacuum,' said Tahseen Alayan, deputy director of Al-Haq. 'This is an extension of the Israeli government; settlement is at the core of their identity. They are protected by the government and by the occupying services, and they freely admit it.'

Shai Parnes of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem told Al Jazeera that the absence of international pressure has bolstered the alliance between the state and settler movement. 'The Israeli regime is an apartheid regime based on Jewish supremacy and institutionalised discrimination against Palestinians.'

Yehouda Shenhav-Shahrabani, one of Israel's leading sociologists, described the channelling of 'Jewish supremacy' from the individual to the group, to the state, and back again as a 'closed loop.' This fosters a sense of superiority among individuals, and when combined with a militarised society, makes violence against the native Palestinian population almost inevitable.

Source: www.aljazeera.com