The decision by five countries to sanction Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich “is significant but mainly performative,” according to Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, special envoy for Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
“All of these countries have got a sizable Muslim population that are getting increasingly more radical and more Jew hating,” Hassan-Nahoum said. “And to me, this is a way of them throwing them a piece of meat to continue business as usual, on the one hand with Israel, but on the other hand, giving them something that they can be happy about.”
Speaking to ILTV News, Hassan-Nahoum called the sanctions “ridiculous” and “a double standard of the worst kind.”
“We have a government here of coalitions, and even if you agree with some ministers or you don't agree with some ministers, that's not what friends and allies do,” she said. “We could get very angry about certain members of parliament in the United Kingdom.”
As an example, she pointed to former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who she said was widely considered antisemitic.
“Did we ever sanction Corbyn? No,” Hassan-Nahoum said. “That’s not what friends do.”
Watch the full interview:
GLOBAL SANCTIONS ON ISRAELI MINISTERS
