UK Foreign Minister Ed Miliband announced a wide-ranging ban on the sale of products produced in Israeli settlements, and on financing and business activities there. He did so in concert with France and Canada, which strengthened the impact of the new policy. They acted in response to a government campaign to terrorise Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank.
Over 60 villages with almost 5,000 inhabitants have been entirely depopulated. At least 1,100 have been killed by armed settlers and IDF soldiers who not only protect them, but participate directly in the attacks.
An import ban on goods from illegal settlements and a new ban on arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation” were among the measures announced. A comprehensive sanctions regime against services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements and a ban on advertising them in the UK, as well as personal sanctions against the main individuals accused of promoting settler violence, were also included.
Israel lobby
Israel’s political leadership reacted with fury to the sanctions. In August, Netanyahu had declared bizarrely that “the first Islamic Republic to have nuclear weapons will be the Islamic Republic of Britain.” He further retaliated by closing the country’s East Jerusalem consulate and placing ten Labour MPs on a travel ban list. Curiously, the foreign secretary was omitted, as were other government ministers, including PM Andy Burnham, who publicly supported the new policy.
The Board of Deputies and chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis released statements accusing Labour of anti-Semitism. This is ironic considering Miliband is a child of Holocaust survivors, who came to Britain as displaced persons after WWII.
Among the lobby’s claims is that the new policy will “make Jews less safe.” This is a mantra repeated whenever Israel faces anti-genocide measures. Mirvis added they would embolden people who “use hatred as a weapon against Jews.”
In fact, defending Israeli crimes as the Lobby does actually endangers Jews, because it gives the impression that supporting such behaviour is intrinsic to Judaism itself.
The Israel Lobby demands condemnations over the settlement ban while saying nothing about Israel’s mass murder of nearly 75,000 Palestinians in Gaza and thousands more in attacks on Lebanon and Iran. Since 10/7, two British Jews have been killed in an attack on a synagogue.
The Board of Deputies linked the government’s measures to the High Holidays, claiming it would put Jews in jeopardy from anti-Semitic attacks against their synagogues on Rosh Hashanah. They even argued that the Labour government was putting the “party’s interests” above those of “the nation.”
This too is an attempt to dismiss the moral element of the new policy. Labour instituted it not because it offers a political advantage, but because it honours international humanitarian law and upholds rulings of courts of justice.
Zionists (and white supremacists) deliberately conflate Jews with Zionism. Thus they exploit the universal condemnation of anti-Semitism for the purpose of tainting efforts to hold Israel accountable for its crimes, including the Gaza genocide, and wars of aggression in Syria, Lebanon and Iran.
The Argentina distraction
In a search for anything that might damage the UK government, far-right ministers like Itamar Ben Gvir, dredged up Argentina’s long-dormant Falklands claim. They are encouraging Argentina to revive its right to sovereignty in the hopes of stirring up an international controversy that might embroil the UK.
The Israeli minister wrote in a Spanish-language post on X: “It's time for the State of Israel to publicly recognise that the Malvinas Islands are Argentine territory under occupation, which the British violently stole from the Argentine people.”
Ben Gvir is also aware that, as the police minister responsible for the torture and murder of Palestinian prisoners, he has been banned by multiple countries. In response to the government’s recent action, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada announced new sanctions on Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich.
It seems the Israeli far-right doesn’t recognise the irony of linking Argentina seeking the return of its territory from a colonial power to Israel’s colonising of Palestine.
It couldn’t be clearer that the Malvinas dispute is an apt metaphor for Israel’s occupation of Palestine and usurpation of Palestinian national rights. What is Israel doing if not occupying the Palestinian people and appropriating its natural resources?
Just as “it’s time to recognise that the Malvinas are Argentine,” it’s time for the world to recognise that Palestine is for Palestinians, and it has been “violently stolen” from them.
Unprecedented settlement ban and sanctions regime
While foreign governments have made gestures of protest, including scores of nations recognising Palestinian statehood, the new measures mark the first time Western governments have taken such a stance.
Recognising a Palestinian state was a symbolic political act with low cost; just as the suspension of arms shipments to Israel during the worst of the genocide was temporary and soon lifted. All of these had little economic or reputational impact.
The settlement ban imposes real (though limited) economic costs on Israel. It restricts global markets for settlement products and shuts off foreign financing for their projects. More importantly, Miliband’s new foreign policy legitimises such sanctions for other nations, which will undoubtedly follow suit.
Nevertheless, the settlement ban has limitations. In fact, British diplomats told the Trump administration that the measures were largely cosmetic. Bloomberg reported that British diplomats have privately told the US the sanctions are largely symbolic and will have no material impact on the UK’s wider relationship with Israel on trade or security, in a bid to soothe the Trump administration’s response.
In addition, these sanctions will have limited practical impact. The UK exports $8 billion in trade to Israel. It has not broken down that figure to isolate trade with settlements. Thus, it is difficult to know how it will enforce the ban. Britain imports only $6 million worth of Israeli goods. So any prohibition on these products would have minimal impact.
The Israeli state vs. Israeli people
The foreign secretary suggested that the government’s anti-settlement plan targets the Israeli government rather than the Israeli people. However, polls show this distinction should no longer hold.
The majority of Israelis serve in an occupation army responsible for these crimes, and most don’t raise their voice against the mass murder and expulsions by settler terrorists in the West Bank.
Israelis are also clearly voting for parties that not only support such an approach but also devise and enact it. This is the work of the entire state of Israel: its government and its people.
Another inadequacy of the new policy is that it targets a relatively small sector of the Israeli public and economy. It will not punish the country in any substantive way. Furthermore, the settlements are only one element in the regime of oppression which Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people. It will not address the genocide in Gaza, apartheid or ethnic cleansing. It will not restrain Israel’s wars of aggression, which are riling the entire region.
There must be sanctions that impact Israel’s entire economy, including ending military aid, joint weapons development with Israeli arms makers, and severing diplomatic relations. Britain must campaign for fellow members of the UN Security Council and its European allies, in a united front. They, in turn, must enact real, punishing sanctions that will shock Israelis into the realisation that they are no longer welcome at the table of nations.
In what appears to be a diplomatic non sequitur, in order to make the settlement policy less controversial, Miliband has declared new sanctions on Iran and Hezbollah. These punishing measures impose actual harm on Iranians and Lebanese, unlike the settlement policy.
It’s interesting that the measures against Israel captured the world’s attention, while having limited impact, whereas those against Iran and Hezbollah will have real impact and are rarely, if at all, reported by the media.
Richard Silverstein writes the Tikun Olam blog and is a freelance journalist specialising in exposing secrets of the Israeli national security state. He campaigns against opacity and the negative impact of Israeli military censorship.
Follow Richard on X: @richards1052
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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.