UK sanctions on Israel: Fig leaf or step in the right direction?

If Britain weren't complicit in Gaza genocide, it’d do more than freeze Israeli ministers’ bank accounts
5 min read

Peter Leary

26 June, 2025
Britain's feeble rebuke of Smotrich and Ben Gvir betrays a government intent on masking its true complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, says Peter Leary.
While this might be considered to be movement in the right direction, the government seems determined to do the absolute minimum, writes Peter Leary [photo credit: Getty Images]

Earlier this month, Britain took the step of imposing sanctions on Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, two of the most extreme far-right members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

These and similar measures amount to a long-overdue and reluctant acceptance on the part of the British state that Israel is committing grave crimes against the Palestinian people, but they are still totally inadequate to end Britain’s complicity in those crimes or bring a halt to Israel’s genocide in the Gaza Strip.  

On June 10, British Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer told MPs of his decision to sanction Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, citing their role in inciting settler violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank.

Both men are now subject to travel bans and asset freezes, preventing them from travelling to Britain and from doing business in Britain or with British citizens overseas.

Both were sanctioned as private individuals rather than in their capacity as ministers. This means that their work in the Israeli government, where they play key roles in deepening Israel’s cruel oppression of Palestinians, can continue unimpeded.

This was not the first time the British government had been forced to act in response to public outrage at Israel’s attacks on Palestinians. In September 2024, Britain suspended some but not all arms export licenses to Israel.

On May 20 this year, Foreign Secretary David Lammy summoned the Israeli ambassador and declared the suspension of trade talks with Israel and sanctions against a handful of illegal settlers following a joint statement issued with the governments of Canada and France, which threatened "concrete actions" if Israel’s brutal siege on Gaza continued.

Announcing these measures, Lammy described Israel’s blockade as "intolerable", saying it is "morally wrong, unjustifiable" and "needs to stop."

He described Israel’s plans to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza as "repellent" and "monstrous."

In doing so, David Lammy appeared finally to be conceding what has long been the growing consensus amongst human rights organisations, legal experts, the international courts, United Nations bodies and relief agencies, and the millions in Britain who have taken to the streets in massive demonstrations over the course of many months – that Israel is committing genocide and other crimes against humanity including using starvation as a weapon of war. 

While all of this might be considered to be movement in the right direction, the government seems determined to do the absolute minimum. Despite the fact that Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Britain continues to provide Israel with political and diplomatic cover and ongoing military support via its Cyprus airbase RAF Akrotiri and by training Israeli soldiers.

In spite of the limited restrictions introduced last year, it still exports weapons and military technology deployed by Israel to carry out its genocide and enforce its blockade on Gaza, including component parts for Israel’s F-35 fighter jets used to drop 2000lb bombs on the crowded civilian population.

In May, a report produced by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Workers for a Free Palestine and Progressive International found that 8,630 separate munitions have been sent from Britain to Israel since the partial ban in September 2024. British companies, financial institutions, and public sector bodies, including universities and local government pension funds, remain deeply implicated in Israel’s apartheid regime.

This ongoing support for Israel’s crimes is sharply out of kilter with popular opinion. Recent polling commissioned by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign reveals a public appetite for far more substantial action than the government is willing to venture. In that survey, voters backed the imposition of a full arms embargo on Israel by more than 4 to 1, including 72% of those who voted Labour in the 2024 election.

An absolute majority – at 54% – wanted Israel to be kicked out of the United Nations, with only 16% opposed to expulsion, and a similar number favoured the removal of Israeli goods from supermarket shelves. These demands are increasingly echoed across the Houses of Parliament, with some, such as Labour MP Richard Burgon, advocating wide-ranging sanctions in response to Israel’s continued violations of international law.

Since these minimal penalties were imposed on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, Israel has only intensified its genocide in Gaza, recently under the cover of Israeli and US aggression against Iran and Iranian retaliation, which has largely distracted global media attention.

Grotesquely, that includes what Conservative MP Kit Malthouse graphically described as Israel’s attempt to replace "the United Nations Relief and Works Agency distribution system with a shooting gallery — an abattoir, where starving people are lured out through combat zones to be shot at." Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed this way in recent weeks.

The entire Israeli government, including its military, is responsible for continuing atrocities and deliberately inflicting hunger on Gaza’s more than 2 million Palestinian people, and is doing so with the material support of ongoing shipments of weapons from Britain. 

It remains possible that recent announcements could come to be seen as a turning point, where the British government finally begins to undo the depths of its complicity in Israel’s genocide, by no longer treating Israel as an ally, but rather as a rogue state carrying out atrocities.

However, that would require a lot more than strong words, starting with a complete arms embargo, and sanctions on the Israeli state, not just blocks on two ministers’ bank accounts. As it stands, it looks more likely to be remembered as a face-saving exercise designed to evade accountability while continuing to enable these heinous crimes. 

Peter Leary is Deputy Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Follow Peter on X: @PeterLeary

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