Bank Leumi was the first to respond, freezing the account of Yinon Levi, one of the four. Today Bank Hadoar, the Postal Bank, froze the account of Dovid Chai Chasdai, another one of the four

Yesterday Finance Minister Betzalel Smotritch called on the banks to not follow these orders and to not freeze the accounts, even saying he will not allow them to follow the orders. Smoritch said no Israeli will be affected by these US orders to freeze accounts.

I am not quite sure how this works. Does Minister Smotritch have the authority to prevent the banks from following such orders? If the banks listen to Smotritch and ignore the orders, practically speaking, will they be able to continue operating as normal or will the US government be able to escalate and freeze all international wires to Israeli banks or take some other action against these institutions? Is like the FATCA rules from several years back - the banks have to play along, no choice, even though it makes things difficult for their customers with US citizenship?

And for those calling for a boycott of Bank Leumi because they followed orders and froze the account, what will happen when other banks do the same to the accounts of the other people in the list - will we be called on to boycott all the main banks? And what do they want people to do - transfer their accounts and loans and mortgages out of Leumi to some other bank, another bank that may do the same a few days later? Do they realize how difficult it is to transfer an account and move all the necessary connections (standing orders of what comes in or goes out) over to a new account? Outstanding checks that will bounce because the account no longer exists, credit card payments on an account that no longer exists, payments to the electric company, gas, school, for the washing machine that someone recently purchased in payments, etc?

I dont know if these four people did what they are accused of and if this order is justified or not. Freezing an account does not seem to require a court case - even within Israel they can put a lien on your account and lock it down because of money owed or due to criminal activity or for other reasons without putting the account holder on trial first. So I dont know if these orders are justified or not or if they can be appealed and challenged, but I dont see how the banks can just ignore the orders.