Victory in Landmark Challenge to Biden-Era “West Bank” Sanctions

As part of the settlement, the U.S. government affirms it “categorically rejects any policy that would infringe upon Israel’s sovereignty or target private organizations and Israeli citizens living in the West Bank”; OFAC issues formal non-enforcement assurance to all plaintiffs

We are pleased to announce the successful resolution of Texans for Israel v. U.S. Department of the Treasury, No. 2:24-cv-00167-Z (N.D. Tex.), the landmark federal lawsuit challenging Executive Order 14115, the Biden administration’s so-called “West Bank” sanctions regime.

Under a settlement agreement executed on June 3, 2026, the U.S. government formally affirmed that “Israel is one of the United States’ closest allies, and the United States will treat the country and its people accordingly,” and that “[t]he United States categorically rejects any policy that would infringe upon Israel’s sovereignty or target private organizations and Israeli citizens living in the West Bank.”

The lawsuit—funded by The Lawfare Project and litigated by Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC, with Jonathan Mitchell serving as local counsel—was filed on behalf of Texans for Israel, its president Michael Isley, the Israeli civil-society organization Regavim, Regavim Director General Meir Deutsch, Yosef Ben Chaim, and farmer Ari Abramowitz, challenging the constitutionality of Executive Order 14115. Although billed as a response to “settler violence,” the order’s sweeping “peace, security, or stability” provision was used to sanction nonviolent protest groups—every one of them Jewish—while not a single Palestinian individual was ever designated. The clear effect and intent of the sanctions was to chill speech critical of the “two-state solution.” The complaint alleged violations of the First and Fifth Amendments, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

“This settlement repudiates the discriminatory notion that Jews are illegal in Judea and Samaria,” said Brooke Goldstein, founder and Executive Director of The Lawfare Project. “Nowhere on earth is the mere presence of Christians, Muslims, or members of any other faith treated as a provocation—yet the prior administration built an entire sanctions regime on the premise that the presence of Jews is. A sanctions program presented as targeting ‘violence’ was applied exclusively against Jews, including a mother of eight whose only ‘offense’ was leading peaceful protests. That is viewpoint discrimination, it is religious discrimination, and it is fundamentally un-American. The U.S. government has now categorically rejected any policy that targets Israeli citizens and private organizations in Judea and Samaria—a key step toward recognizing that law enforcement in Judea and Samaria is a matter for Israel. The Lawfare Project is proud to have funded the litigation that helped bring this regime down.”

“Given the supposed epidemic of settler violence, it is notable that the sanctions imposed against it—beginning with Biden’s executive order—target Jews not for murder, but for protesting aid to Hamas or advocating against illegal Palestinian construction. The settlement is particularly important in acknowledging that the sanctions discriminatorily singled out Jews, while ignoring the Palestinian Authority’s official 'pay-for-slay' program,” said Professor Eugene Kontorovich of George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, who advised the legal team.

The litigation was instrumental in raising the profile of these discriminatory sanctions. On his first day in office, President Trump revoked Executive Order 14115, and within days the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) removed all 33 individuals and entities designated under it and unblocked their property.

The settlement secures meaningful commitments beyond the revocation itself. OFAC has issued a formal letter confirming that it will not take enforcement action against any of the plaintiffs for activity that would otherwise have been prohibited under the revoked order, and reaffirming that OFAC “does not sanction persons for their engagement in activities subject to U.S. constitutional protection, such as protected speech or religious practice or for their religious beliefs.”

Significantly, the government also affirmed in the settlement that Reut Ben Haim—a mother of eight and the founder of the Tzav 9 protest movement—was “designated … not on the basis of evidence that she directly participated” in violent actions. In other words, the United States has now acknowledged that she was sanctioned without any finding that she personally engaged in unlawful conduct—precisely the abuse the lawsuit was filed to stop.

The settlement is an acknowledgment that the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria is not a provocation. It rejects the discriminatory premise that Jews—alone among Christians, Muslims, and members of every other faith—are somehow illegal in Judea and Samaria, and it repudiates a sanctions regime that was itself applied in a discriminatory manner.

The settlement’s lessons are urgent. This week, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand imposed coordinated sanctions on Israeli individuals and entities, following measures the European Union adopted on May 28. Among those targeted are plaintiffs in this very case. The EU has sanctioned Regavim and its Director General, Meir Deutsch, and Canada has sanctioned Regavim—not for any act of violence, of which Regavim has never even been accused, but expressly for the organization’s lobbying and legal proceedings, in which it urges the State of Israel to uphold the law. Canada’s own announcement justifies its measures as targeting conduct “undermining the viability of a two-state solution”—confirming what the plaintiffs argued from the day this lawsuit was filed: “settler violence” sanctions are, and always were, a vehicle for punishing free speech and peaceful political advocacy.

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