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Matthew Mainen, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs on behalf of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told JNS that the case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, raises basic questions about the rights of U.S. citizens to due process under the law.
“American citizens have a right to be heard and to challenge the government before the government takes action against them or deprives them of some interest,” Mainen said. “The Biden administration, with what appears to be zero due diligence, did just that.”
In February, U.S. President Joe Biden Biden issued executive order 14115, “on imposing certain sanctions on persons undermining peace, security and stability in the West Bank,” which was intended to combat “extremist settler violence” in Judea and Samaria that the Biden administration had determined to be undermining a path to a two-state solution.
The text of the order says that it could be applied to any “foreign person” that the Biden administration determines to be undermining peace and security in the “West Bank,” but makes no provisions for U.S. nationals.
The plaintiffs, Issachar Manne and Yitzhak Pilant, allege that as U.S. citizens they should not have been subject to the order and say that the claims the U.S. State and Treasury Departments made about them were false.
“The State Department’s accusations are entirely false and appear to be based on a ‘comprehensive dossier’ submitted just a few days prior to the sanctioning by Democracy for Arab World Now (DAWN), an organization whose board members have ties to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood and have praised Hamas, and which failed to even get plaintiff Pilant’s last name right,” the filing says.
The State Department described Pilant, whom they labeled “Filant,” as a “civilian security coordinator of the Yitzhar settlement” who had “led a group of armed settlers to set up roadblocks and conduct patrols to pursue and attack Palestinians” in February 2024.
The misspelling corresponds to a DAWN report accusing Pilant of violence against Palestinians, including the roadblock.
According to the suit, Pilant was not a civilian but was in fact operating under the orders of the Israel Defense Forces as a captain of the regional defense unit for Yitzhar commanding 60 reserve soldiers.
Eugene Kontorovich, an advisor to the plaintiffs’ legal team, told JNS that this was the first case he was aware of in which an IDF soldier was sanctioned by the U.S. government for following Israeli military orders.
“It’s particularly extraordinary because he’s not being sanctioned for murdering civilians, or indiscriminate attacks, or any kind of war crimes,” Kontorovich said. “He’s being sanctioned for administering a checkpoint.”
In Manne’s case, the State Department accused him of “seizing 150 hectares of land” for his sheep farm on pastures “belonging to the Palestinian community.” The lawsuit claims that Manne rents the land and grazes his sheep on property that the Israeli government says is not owned by anyone.
“Manne has never appropriated, nor has he sought to appropriate, land under private Palestinian ownership or otherwise designated by the Israeli government as private or restricted,” per the suit. “To the extent that he utilizes private property, he rents land owned by the settlement division of the World Zionist Organization, and therefore any private land he utilizes is owned not by Palestinians but by a Jewish organization to which he pays rent.”
JNS sought comment from the Treasury and State Departments.
Both Pilant and Manne are U.S. citizens by birth. Pilant was born in Israel, and his family is from Pittsburgh. Manne’s father is from California.
Mainen told JNS that while the president has extensive powers to apply sanctions to foreigners, Pilant and Manne should have been exempt as U.S. citizens.
“We’re in a different ball game when we’re dealing with American citizens who, even if they live in Israel or anywhere else in the world, they have the same rights as an American citizen in California,” Mainen said. “A line clearly needs to be drawn when you’re talking about American citizens.”
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to rescind many of Biden’s executive orders, including the “extremist settler violence” sanctions on Israelis in Judea and Samaria.
Kontorovich told JNS that even if Trump rescinds the order, Pilant and Manne have had their lives “turned upside down.”
“All their credit cards have been canceled. Everything has been canceled,” Kontorovich said. “If a government can do this to them without any process, without any investigation, without any notice, without any standards and without any oversight, this can happen again.”
