There are mounting rumours that the UK government is planning to introduce a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
Such a ban has been a core demand of the Palestine solidarity movement for many years, as a key basic step towards ending UK complicity with Israel’s violations of international law.
That it is now close to achievement is a product of two factors. The first is the increasing untenability of the position adopted by successive UK governments, which have treated Israel as a democratic ally to be shielded from accountability, while sustaining rhetorical support for Palestinian self-determination.
The hypocrisy of this position, maintained even as Israel’s military occupation and apartheid descended into full-blown genocide, is collapsing under the weight of the increasingly brazen Netanyahu government, whose “Greater Israel” project aims to cement Jewish supremacy and remove any possibility of a Palestinian state.
As it undertook the genocidal destruction of Gaza, Israel simultaneously accelerated settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, while retroactively legalising settlement outposts, demolishing more Palestinian homes, and facilitating an epidemic of settler violence.
