UK settlement sanctions a policy shift but unlikely to deter Israel, says Caabu

The Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu) has warned against excessive optimism over the sanctions regime that the UK and several other European countries plan to impose on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights saying the measures are unlikely to deter Israeli aggression and settlement expansion.

Caabu Director Chris Doyle described the British government's announcement of the forthcoming sanctions as reflecting a "major reset of the UK government policy" towards Israel, but added that he did not expect the Israeli government to respond to pressure to halt either settlement expansion or deadly violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In an interview with The New Arab, Doyle said the UK's acknowledgement of acts of ethnic cleansing committed by settlers in the occupied West Bank, together with its intention to impose sanctions on settlements there, represented a "transformation, shift of policy and change in substance" that "actually puts accountability into the equation that takes action that is sanctioning these settlements because they are illegal".

'Clear determination' to go forward

On the eve of Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband's appearance before Parliament to announce the sanctions regime last week, Doyle attended a meeting with Stephen Doughty, Minister for the Middle East at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

He said he emerged from the meeting with "the belief that there is a clear determination to move forward" and act "without hesitation" in dealing with Israel. He added that he believed that Miliband himself "is also serious" about implementing the measures that were announced.

Doyle also attached "legal significance" to Britain's acknowledgement that the Israeli occupation and presence in Palestine are illegal.

He added, however, that the anticipated British measures do not amount to the level of punishment Israel deserves for ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and the occupation.

But he said the measures showed that "the problem has at least been identified somewhat more truthfully, in the West Bank but also Gaza".

Therefore, he said, "the necessary measures to deal with this can be taken, maybe step by step", reiterating his view that the upcoming measures are "serious".

Doyle noted that the British government was "quite clear that they did not envisage a complete trade ban with Israel". Nonetheless, he asked: "who knows where things will be in six months, a year's time?"

Greater atrocities feared

Caabu considers the current British measures insufficient to punish Israel for settlement activity, even though it views them as "moving in the right direction".

"We have made our demands very clear," Doyle said. "We believe that there should be a full, complete ban on all dealings, all trade with settlements and financial services being offered to settlements".

He also argued that "the UK should not continue with business as usual in its relationship with the State of Israel" and that, "at a minimum, Britain should suspend the trade agreement with Israel, so that no Israeli products arrive (in the UK) under preferences".

"We should not be trading as usual with a state that is committing such serious violations of international law," he added.

Miliband's pledges included working to establish an operational sanctions regime within nine months. Doyle expressed optimism that the promised regime would not be weakened during the relevant ministries' review of the drafting process or because of exemptions for religious reasons mentioned in the ministerial statement.

He attributed the length of the process, as he understood it, to "ensuring that this ban cannot be challenged in the courts".

Despite Caabu's welcoming of the UK announcement, Doyle remained pessimistic about Israel's response and the likelihood of it changing its policies.

He said he was "certain this will not happen, under this government (led by Benjamin Netanyahu) or any likely government".

The Caabu director added that pressuring Israel enough to change its policies would necessitate "additional measures to prove that this (Israel's stance) cannot pass". He said that "when the (British) government is ready to implement the measures it announced, who knows what it might be prepared (to do) if Israel, for example, goes ahead with E1, conducts even greater atrocities in the West Bank?"

However, whatever Britain's capacity to act and influence, Doyle stressed that it would not be enough to "stop and deter Israel from continuing" its settlement programme, which he linked to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. He added that "further international action, including by Britain, will almost certainly be required".

No to 'business as usual'

Doyle also hoped that the upcoming British measures would be a step towards reassessing overall relations with Israel, saying relations "should not continue as usual" following "Israel's serious violations of international law, including the genocide in Gaza".

He also hoped that Andy Burnham's government's towards the Middle East in general would be influenced by his experience of visiting the West Bank, which Caabu co-organised with the Labour Friends of Palestine group for Burnham and several MPs in September 2012.

Doyle said Caabu's activities had helped in "building a much better understanding of certain (Middle Eastern) issues within the British Parliament", including Syria and Lebanon, as well as raising debates over the US war on Iran and ways to address issues such as Islamophobia.

A parliamentary bloc against Israel

Caabu has sought over the past 59 years to "stimulate a debate on the Middle East and its issues based on accurate knowledge".

Its work has included hosting speakers from across the Middle East to address British politicians and providing opportunities for them to connect with influential British media outlets.

Doyle said this was "one of the reasons why you see, for example, a very strong parliamentary bloc demanding action against Israel regarding the atrocities it commits in Gaza, as well as in the West Bank, Lebanon, and its role in the war against Iran".

Caabu also continues to build relations with British MPs. At its most recent meeting with MPs in June, Doyle used maps and data to explain the dangerous consequences of Israel's new E1 settlement project in the occupied West Bank. Extremist Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich has previously boasted that the project makes a Palestinian state impossible.

'Dehumanised' peoples

Despite its efforts, Caabu believes Britain's policy towards the Middle East, regardless of which party is in power, does not contribute sufficiently to conflict-resolution efforts or support for human rights and civil society in the region.

Doyle attributed this to a lack of "informed debate and rational policymaking" based on accurate information about countries in the region and developments there.

He cited the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began last February, as a clear example. Doyle said British officials "believed absolute nonsense" that prevailed within the administration of US President Donald Trump regarding the war, the fragility of Iran's ruling regime and the disposition of its people.

He said "there are many people in the British political system who shared these views, who genuinely believed, somehow, that the regime would be easily toppled", adding that they "still believe that some outfit had been toppled (and) there would have been some very pro-Western, reasonable government to take its place".

Doyle said very few people in Britain and the West "were certainly aware before the war, and perhaps still are now, of the type of state Iran represents, with all its different identity groups".

He attributed this to "a great deal (among the British and the West) of dehumanising the peoples of the region", which he said had led to "the widespread presuming that the people in Iran would not be able to put up a fight against the United States and Israel, and that Iran would not possess a reasonable, effective strategy to counter".

However, he said the Iranian leadership "proved that wrong, whether we like it or not".

Doyle said this reflected "a lot of very naive assumptions about the Middle East, [and] a lack of understanding of that, the differences between communities, the huge variety in terms of life, ways of life, different sects, ethnicities, and the like".

Caabu believes Arab countries themselves bear some responsibility for the lack of understanding of their positions in Britain, despite longstanding historical ties between the two sides.

'Honest and genuine' dialogue

Doyle said Arabs "can play a more effective role in trying to build an understanding of the region" in the West.

However, he said "in the Arab world, there needs to be more united positions on certain issues, and sometimes there needs to be a greater clarity to some of their positions on what is going on".

He also criticised the lack of Arab consensus, which he attributed partly to the absence of "a very honest dialogue, genuine dialogue, between Arab states".

He said there should be such dialogue "between Arab states and their partners, to build, construct, and develop more sophisticated and effective policy approaches".

At the same time, Doyle said the Arab world needed "a better understanding of both Europe and the United States".

He stressed that responsibility did not lie with governments alone, saying "there should be a collective effort" by civil society organisations and government institutions "to have an informed debate on all of these issues on the way forward, on many challenges".