British Prime Minister Andy Burnham defended his government’s decision to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, saying that Britain was being true to its roots by taking a stand for justice.
“Britain has to stand for fairness against injustice where people are being bullied out of their homes,” Burnham told Parliament. “We will always stand with the underdog and take what action we can to support them.”
The U.K. announced the ban on Tuesday, and Israel responded by closing the British consulate in east Jerusalem and banning 11 lawmakers from the country.
The U.K.’s tougher stance was followed by France and Canada’s leaders saying they would take similar action to prevent expanding settlements and growing violence from making it impossible to establish a future Palestinian state.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said “settler terrorists” were carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians in the U.K. government’s biggest pushback to Israel since it recognized Palestinian statehood a year ago. He said there had been “houses bulldozed, roads and public infrastructure destroyed, families displaced from their homes.”
