Britain’s Tough Approach To Israeli Settlements

The current Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, labors under the grand illusion that its controversial settlement policy in the occupied West Bank will have no adverse effect on its bilateral relations with foreign countries.

On September 7, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband disabused Israel of its illusion when he lambasted its position on this key issue and announced a “new approach” to it.

As expected, Israel reacted with fury, throwing its relationship with Britain and its new prime minister, Andy Burnham, into disarray.

The United States, Israel’s chief ally, did not endorse Britain’s stance. But in a double whammy, the leaders of Britain, Canada and France released a joint statement condemning Israel’s “systematic settlement expansion” in the West Bank, saying it imperilled the prospect of a two-state solution.

“One year ago, we recognized the State of Palestine,” said the statement. “The time has come to take further action to uphold our commitment to protect the two-state solution … before it is too late. Settlements are illegal under international law.”

Canada, Britain and France said they would “take steeps to ban the importation of goods from settlements.” Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden followed suit, pledging to support restrictions on trade with Israeli settlements.

In a speech in the House of Commons, Miliband said that Britain would impose an import ban on goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, sanction companies and individuals that facilitate settlement expansion, and refuse licenses for weapons deemed to materially support Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank. These measures will be phased in over a period of six to nine months.

Israeli exports from settlements account for only a small proportion of the annual $8 billion trade between Britain and Israel. Britain’s announcement is a psychological blow to Israel, but the Israeli government can take solace from Miliband’s promise that Britain’s trade with Israel behind its pre-1967 border will remain unaffected. “We will continue to support important and valued trade with Green Line Israel precisely because we support the two-state solution, including security and prosperity for Israel,” he said. “For this reason, I wholeheartedly oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions ( BDS) campaign.”

Yet, as he went on to say, the British government now considers Israel’s “occupation as a whole” in the West Bank as unlawful. He cited Israel’s “expansionist agenda via illegal settlements” and suggested that Israel seeks to attain “permanent sovereignty” over the West Bank, which is currently inhabited by about three million Palestinians and 500,000 Jewish settlers.

“Our argument is not with the people of Israel, with whom the UK has unshakable bonds,” he said. “Our argument is with the conduct of its government.”

In a bold critique of Netanyahu’s coalition government, Miliband accused it of turning “a blind eye” to “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank” perpetrated by Israeli settlers, who are shamefully treated with kid gloves by the Israeli government.

Worse still, he said, members of the Israeli government have “made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.” Israel’s abject failure to rein in settler violence in the West Bank prompted Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel and a lifelong Christian Zionist, to denounce “settler terrorists” and call for “severe consequences.”

In a personal note, Miliband said, “I am proud of my Jewishness and unwavering in my support for the State of Israel. And there is absolutely no contradiction between this and my support for the State of Palestine. Indeed quite the opposite. The two-state solution is based on an explicit belief that the only route to security for both peoples is to live side by side in peaceful co-existence with freedom, security and self-determination.”

And in a nod to the upsurge of antisemitism since Hamas’ attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war, Miliband said, “I also want to say emphatically to people in Britain and across the world: Holding British Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitism, plain and simple.”

Miliband’s remarks were reasonable, but Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar denounced the British moves, calling them “antisemitic” and “morally distorted.”

Saying he had “no choice” but to respond with countermeasures, he announced the closure of Britain’s consulate in Jerusalem, which serves Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,  the removal of  British representatives at the International Gaza Support Center in Israel, and the termination of a British program to train Palestinian Authority forces.

Reiterating Israel’s rejection of a two-state solution, he said, “After everything we have seen, after the Israeli concessions in the Oslo Accords and the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the second intifada and October 7, the Israeli public utterly rejects the establishment of a jihadist terror state in the heart of our land.”

Regrettably, Israeli President Isaac Herzog toed Sa’ar’s line, describing Britain’s decision as “a grave miscalculation” falling “on the wrong side of history.” And in a reference to Israel’s forthcoming election on October 27, he labelled it as “gross interference in the democratic election of a sovereign nation.”

Herzog, his comments notwithstanding, is presumably aware of the truth. In the past few years, Israel has established 185 new outposts and 102 new settlements and advanced the construction of 40,064 housing units in existing settlements, according to Peace Now and Kerem Navot.

This past August, Israel issued a tender for the construction of more than 1,000 housing units in the E-1 area east of Jerusalem. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich lauded the E1 plan as a mighty blow to the “two-state delusion.”

Yossi Alpher, the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, believes that the E-1 scheme will undermine a two-state solution.

As he wrote, “It would cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, thereby thwarting legitimate Palestinian aspirations to build a capital in East Jerusalem and would sabotage long-standing plans to connect the northern and southern parts of the West Bank by a road in sovereign Palestinian territory lying directly to the east of Jerusalem. Advocates of a Palestinian state argue that E-1 construction would in effect cut that state in two.”

Western nations like Britain, Canada and France are acutely aware of Israel’s intention to retain the West Bank, build more settlements, and thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state. Their resistance to Israel’s strategy is not, as Sa’ar falsely claimed, grounded in antisemitism, but in a desire to defuse Israel’s century-long conflict with the Palestinians.

Decades could elapse before this outcome is ever achieved. After October 7, Israelis are skeptical more than ever of Palestinian statehood. Yet a two-state solution is imperative if Israelis and Palestinians are to live in peace and harmony. Which is why Miliband has vigorously challenged the debilitating status quo created by Israel in the West Bank.