Britain’s acknowledgement that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing in parts of the occupied West Bank should be a watershed moment.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s statement that the forced displacement of Palestinians is being perpetrated by “terrorist settlers”, while members of the Israeli government have supported it through their words and actions, goes significantly further than the language successive British governments have traditionally been willing to use.
This matters. For decades, Britain has condemned Israeli settlements as illegal under international law while maintaining political, economic and military relations with the state responsible for building and expanding them.
But if the British government now accepts that what is taking place is not simply “settlement expansion”, settler violence or another deterioration in an endlessly managed conflict, but ethnic cleansing, then its response must match the gravity of its own words.
So far, it does not.
The government has announced plans to restrict imports from illegal Israeli settlements, take action against companies involved in settlement activity and extend restrictions on arms sales connected to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
These measures are welcome. They are also long overdue.
But a glaring contradiction exists between recognising an ongoing crime of such magnitude and proposing measures that may take another six to nine months to implement.
Palestinians being driven from their land cannot wait months for Whitehall to decide which settlement products should be barred from British shelves.
Nor should Britain’s response be confined to the settlements themselves.
Israeli state policy
Israeli settlements are not autonomous entities operating independently of the state. They have been created, protected, financed and expanded through Israeli state policy. Settlers operate under the protection of the Israeli military, while senior ministers openly champion annexation and Palestinian displacement.
The distinction between violent settlers and the state enabling them has therefore become increasingly impossible to sustain.
The scale of the enterprise makes that clear. Around 700,000 Israeli settlers now live in settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, amid roughly 3.3 million Palestinians whose movement, access to land and basic rights are constrained by an occupation Britain itself considers illegal.
The latest expansion of settlement activity, including plans for around 1,200 homes in the strategically crucial E1 area east of Jerusalem, further threatens the territorial continuity of a future Palestinian state.
Britain cannot continue treating each new settlement announcement as an isolated provocation while maintaining largely normal relations with the government implementing the wider project.
Political pressure works
Another reason this announcement matters is that it shows political pressure works.
For years, Palestinian organisations, solidarity movements, human rights groups, MPs and ordinary members of the British public have demanded consequences for Israel’s violations of international law. They have often been dismissed, vilified or accused of pursuing unrealistic demands.
Yet the political ground has shifted.
Polling commissioned by the Council for Arab-British Understanding has found around half of the British public supporting a comprehensive ban on trade with Israeli settlements, with only a small minority opposed. Hundreds of MPs have publicly backed stronger action, while parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has also called for a settlement trade ban.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign is therefore justified in arguing that sustained public mobilisation helped produce this change. Millions of people have marched, organised and lobbied during Israel’s war on Gaza, demanding sanctions and an arms embargo.
Government policy does not change in a vacuum.
But campaigners are equally right to insist that the latest measures cannot be the endpoint.
For Palestinians, there is little consolation in Britain finally adopting tougher language after years in which Gaza has been devastated, tens of thousands have been killed, and displacement and settlement expansion have accelerated across the occupied territories.
Britain also cannot credibly invoke international law selectively.
The International Court of Justice’s July 2024 advisory opinion found Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful and said states must neither recognise the situation created by that unlawful presence nor render aid or assistance in maintaining it.
That principle should provide the starting point for British policy.
If London believes Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing, it must examine the entirety of Britain’s relationship with Israel through that lens: arms transfers, trade, financial relationships, companies profiting from occupation, diplomatic protection and any other form of support that could help sustain an unlawful occupation.
Britain must act now
A comprehensive ban on settlement goods should be implemented urgently, not after another six to nine months of deliberation. Companies materially involved in settlements and occupation should face meaningful consequences. Arms restrictions should become a comprehensive embargo wherever there is a risk that British equipment will facilitate violations of international law.
And Britain must be willing to impose costs on the Israeli government itself when its policies facilitate displacement, annexation and settler violence.
This is not about imposing sanctions for their own sake. Sanctions are a way to give international law consequences.
For too long, Western policy towards Israel has operated according to the opposite principle: condemn the settlements, warn against annexation, express concern about civilian deaths, and then preserve the political and economic relationship that allows those policies to continue without meaningful cost.
That approach has failed.
Britain’s new language suggests its government increasingly recognises the scale of that failure. But describing ethnic cleansing while responding with a limited trade measure would merely replace one contradiction with another.
Moreover, Britain bears a particular historic responsibility. From the Balfour Declaration onwards, it played a foundational role in enabling the Zionist project in Palestine and has continued to provide political and material support to Israel.
That history makes Britain’s responsibility to confront the consequences of its policies, rather than merely condemn them, all the more pressing.
If the British government has finally found the courage to name the crime, it must now find the political courage to act accordingly.
The New Arab Editorial represents the collective voice of The New Arab’s editorial team, presenting views that promote authentic discourses on the MENA region and beyond.
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