The U.K. government said Tuesday that it’s banning trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, where it says “settler terrorists” are carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said that the U.K. will ban imports of all goods from the settlements, and some services including financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising for settlements. He said that France and Canada would also ban trade in goods from settlements.
It’s a significant toughening of Britain’s stance towards longtime ally Israel, whose conduct towards the Palestinians under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has increasingly been criticized by the U.K. and other Israeli allies.
Under Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government, settlement construction in the West Bank — seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — has surged. The international community overwhelmingly considers such construction to be illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
