UK announces sanctions on West Bank settlements prompting furious Israeli response

BBC:

The UK has announced sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing Israel’s government of turning a blind eye to the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians by settlers.

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said the move marked the “beginning of a new approach” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which “not only calls out injustice and suffering but acts”.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar responded by accusing him of spreading an “outrageous lie” and announced counter-measures including shutting the UK’s consulate in East Jerusalem.

The UK sanctions will ban settlement goods but also act against companies and individuals providing services for settlement expansion.

The sanctions were launched alongside France and Canada, which in a joint statement with the UK said the action “marks a further turning point in our approach to protecting the two-state solution”.

Settlements are illegal under international law, and there has been a rise in violence towards Palestinians in the West Bank by settlers in recent months.

In a statement to MPs, Miliband said: “The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists.

“And all too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.”

He said ethnic cleansing was defined by the UN as a “purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent means another ethnic or religious group from certain areas”.

Miliband said the official view of the government was that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank was unlawful because of the “entrenchment of its control, its intention to extend permanent sovereignty, and its expansionist agenda via illegal settlements”.

He said this position, which is in line with a 2024 advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice,should be reflected in the UK’s “economic relationship” with the occupied West Bank.

As a result, over the next six to nine months, the UK will introduce “a new comprehensive sanctions regime”, he said.

The foreign secretary also announced a ban on advertising illegal West Bank settlements in the UK.

“The sanctions regime will target illegal settlements and settlement expansion, not Israel,” Miliband added.

Later on Tuesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the targeted measures were “aimed not at the Israeli people, but in support of the two-state solution”.