This week, alongside partners Canada, France and Norway, the UK government announced expanded sanctions against 6 entities and one individual enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank. The government has also strengthened its business risk guidance to make clear that British citizens and businesses should not conduct any economic or financial activities in Israel’s illegal settlements.
As noted by Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Calum Miller in Parliament on Tuesday, the new measures – though welcome – are extremely overdue, with the Dutch Government having issued a similar discouragement notice 20 years ago. Moreover, the notice remains purely advisory and carries no penalty for non-compliance, falling woefully short of a comprehensive ban on all trade with Israeli settlements.
The limitations of that approach are obvious. This weekend, the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” is due to take place in London, an international roadshow that openly advertises the sale of land in West Bank settlements. If ministers genuinely believe British citizens and businesses should not engage in settlement-related activity, then allowing stolen Palestinian land to be marketed in our capital just days after issuing new guidance against settlement trade makes a mockery of that position.
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