UK announces trade ban on West Bank Israeli settlements
Kieran Burke with dpa, Reuters | Wesley Dockery17 hours ago17 hours ago
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the measures were in response to what he called “settler terrorism” in the occupied territories. The measures are part of the UK’s efforts to support a two-state solution.
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The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced trade restrictions on goods made in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The center-left Labour Party government has previously sanctioned some Israeli settlers and illegal outposts over violence against Palestinians and illegal development in the West Bank.
The announcement came as the foreign ministers of 11 other governments announced they too would be slapping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements.
Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden also plan to limit trade with the settlements, according to a joint statement.
Meanwhile, an EU Foreign Affairs spokesperson said the bloc “adopted three packages of sanctions against extreme settlers and their entities.”
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What did Miliband say?
“I can announce today that we will introduce an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories,” UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced in the House of Commons.
“We will take action against specific companies and individuals who provide services such as construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate for settlement expansion,” Miliband said.
The foreign secretary said those financing or facilitating illegal settlement would “face the full force of UK sanctions.”
Before announcing the sanctions, Miliband said that “settler terrorism was rampant” and referenced various instances of violence in the West Bank.
Miliband accused the Israeli government of turning a “blind eye” to what he called “ethnic cleansing” by settlers in the West Bank.
Why is the UK restricting trade?
The measures appear to be setting the tone for relations between Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Israel.
According to a Downing Street readout of a phone call between the British leader and US President Donald Trump on the phone on Monday, Burnham laid out “the UK’s commitment to working towards peace and security in the region,” and stressed the importance of a two-state solution in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Burnham, along with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, said in a joint statement on Tuesday that Canada, France and the UK will “take steps to ban the importation of goods from settlements and enforce targeted measures against settlements and those who facilitate them or profit from them.”
The United Kingdom, Canada and France recognized Palestinian statehood last year in an attempt to revive efforts to achieve a two-state solution.
The moves come as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government forges ahead with settlement construction in the West Bank, raising fears among some Western governments that it threatens any possible two-state solution. Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law.
The measures also come amid flaring tensions in the West Bank that have involved violent attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers.
The UK has previously condemned the violence while calling for civilians to be protected and for those responsible to be held accountable.
Palestinian group watches for Israeli settlers in West Bank
The Palestinian Authority welcomed the announcement of sanctions, calling the measures “an important step” to accountability.
“This as an important practical step toward holding the settlement system accountable and demonstrating non-recognition of the unlawful situation created by the occupation,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s office said in a statement.
Israel orders closure of UK consulate in Jerusalem
Ahead of the announcement, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar already indicated that Israel would respond.
“If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain,” Saar warned.
Saar ordered the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem once the measures became known.
“The accusations made today by the foreign secretary in the British Parliament were outrageous lies,” Saar said in response to Miliband accusing Israeli settlers of ethnic cleansing in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Saar also said 11 British MPs, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and veteran Labour lawmaker Diane Abbott, would be banned from entry to Israel. Fahad Ansari, a lawyer and director of the anti-Zionist Riverway to Sea organization, will also be hit with an entry ban.
Israel’s hard-line public security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly recognize the Falkland Islands as “Argentine territory under occupation, which the British violently steal from the Argentine people.”
UK decision also met with domestic condemnation
Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, called it a “dark day for British Jews” while accusing the UK government of engaging in “gesture politics.”
“These measures will succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target,” Mirvis wrote in a post on X.
Tom Tugendhat, a British Conservative Party lawmaker who serves as shadow foreign secretary, said that “turning Israel into a pariah will risk sectarian division in our own country and risk a further rise in antisemitic violence on our own streets.”
Edited by: Saim Dušan Inayatullah
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