Israeli “terrorists” are conducting ethnic cleansing in the West Bank with the tacit backing of the government, the UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband has said, as he announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements alongside France and Canada.
In the strongest condemnation ever issued by the UK government, Miliband said the government would now take the official position that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was unlawful in its entirety, saying such acknowledgment was “the least the people who face such suffering deserve. And it should be the prelude to justice.”
Miliband said that the government would now enact:
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An import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories.
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A comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements.
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A ban on the advertising in the UK of illegal settlement properties.
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Personal sanctions against key individuals accused of promoting settler violence.
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A new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.
The UK is among 12 countries who said on Tuesday that they would impose the sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank. They include Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
Miliband said the action would show that “Britain is not silent in the face of deep injustice and nor is it powerless”. In an emotional statement, he described the agony he had heard from Palestinians in the West Bank whose homes had been destroyed and from doctors in Gaza who had seen children dying waiting for medical treatment.
The UK’s actions have been made increasingly urgent by Israel’s plans to expand the E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem, which could in effect cut off the north from the south of the West Bank, threatening the viability of any future Palestinian state.
Miliband said those who financed or facilitated illegal settlements would “face the full force of UK sanctions” and that he expected the legislation to enforce the trade ban and sanctions to be in place within nine months.
He stopped short of describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, saying the UK would wait for the determination of the international courts.
Speaking in the Commons on Tuesday, Miliband said: “The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists.
“All too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians. I recognise the gravity of saying this, but the truth is the least the people who face such suffering deserve. And it should be the prelude to justice.”
He said the British government had previously described settlements as illegal but had not described the occupation itself as unlawful, and that would now change.
Miliband said he was taking the action as foreign secretary but also as a “proud British Jew” with relatives who had found safety in Israel after the Holocaust.
“I am proud of my Jewishness and unwavering in my support for the state of Israel,” he said.
“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 coexistence with freedom, security and self-determination.”
He said to respond to threats against Jews around the world, the UK would also impose sanctions on Lebanese Hezbollah’s financing arm, Al-Qard al-Hassan, and reimpose major economic sanctions on Iran in line with the EU and US.
Miliband said he felt a “deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community” and said there had been “the most unimaginable trauma and suffering in the last three years – death, destruction and dehumanisation on an appalling scale”.
The foreign secretary said the action marked the beginning of a new approach towards Israel and Palestine; one that not only condemned but took action.
“Our argument is not with the people of Israel, with whom the UK has unshakeable bonds. Our argument is with the conduct of its government.”
Miliband said the actions of the Israeli government in the West Bank meant more settlements had been approved in the last four years than in the last 20 years combined.
He said he believed the majority of the British people would support the ban on trade with illegal settlements. “Settlements are illegal. They should not be promoted in our country,” he said.
The UK government knew there were also concerns about arm sales to Israel, he said. The UK had already suspended more than 30 arms licences used by the IDF in Gaza, but would now go further.
“We will now also refuse all licence applications for arms and other exports that materially contribute to the occupation, in effect a double lock against arms sales. This means the ban on such exports will now remain as long as the occupation persists.”
He said the UK would support “full, robust and fair judicial processes” to determine if Israel had committed genocide and said the government would not pre-judge that process.
“This has been the case for all of the genocides since the 1948 genocide convention: Rwanda, Srebrenica, Cambodia, and acts against the Yazidi people. This will remain our policy. It is right that this issue has been brought before the ICJ [international court of justice] and I want to make it clear that we support the court in coming to its determination.”
However, he said that the most recent reports by international bodies found there was “increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed and we support legal processes to determine this”.
The UK would use the UN general assembly next week to “shine the clearest and harshest spotlight on what is happening and what must change”.
The shadow foreign secretary, Tom Tugendhat, said “illegal settlements are wrong” but that he was “enacting policies that the Foreign Office knows won’t work – but it does know they will harm innocents”.
He said there was a risking of harming Palestinians who worked in the West Bank and that “the economies of Palestine and Israel are too interconnected” for a ban on goods for illegal settlements to work.
But the veteran Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh gave full backing to the sanctions. “I am proud to say as the longest serving member of the Conservative Friends of Israel that I absolutely and fully support what he is doing today because it is about standing up for freedom, for morality and justice for all people in this world,” he said.
The steps set out by Miliband fall short of the full demands made by Palestinian advocacy groups, but are a sign the UK is moving beyond traditional rhetorical support for a two-state solution towards active steps to forestall the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
The prime minister, Andy Burnham, spoke to Donald Trump and key Gulf allies, such as Qatar, on Monday to brief them on the government’s plans in the region.
Both the US and Israel have threatened retaliation against Britain for the sanctions. The US ambassador to Israel, Mick Huckabee, said the US was considering what action to take, warning it may prohibit the UK from trade with several US states that have anti-BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) laws.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, said it was “a gross interference in the democratic elections of a sovereign nation” before the country’s elections in October.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said: “If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain,” and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, called for the expulsion of the British ambassador.
