{"id":97547,"date":"2026-07-19T12:54:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/97547\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T12:54:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T12:54:22","slug":"belgium-bans-west-bank-imports-drawing-condemnations-from-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/97547\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium bans West Bank imports, drawing condemnations from Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Belgian federal government has adopted by royal decree an import ban on goods<\/a> from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.<\/a><\/p>\n

The decision to introduce the ban was made in September 2025, but political disagreements and negotiations delayed its implementation.<\/p>\n

A political agreement was finally reached on Saturday, during an overnight marathon cabinet session just before the government entered its summer recess.<\/p>\n

This makes Belgium the fourth European country with an import ban on Israeli settlements. Spain was first in September 2025, followed by the Netherlands and then Ireland.<\/p>\n

No details of the bill are available yet, as the text has not been made public.<\/p>\n

\"BelgianBelgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever speaks at the Belgian Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. (credit: YVES HERMAN\/REUTERS)’Belgium has reached a point of no return’<\/p>\n

Following the announcement on Saturday, MK Sharren Haskel<\/a> said: \u201cBelgium has reached a point of no return.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can continue importing radical Islam. We will continue exporting products from Judea and Samaria<\/a> to countries that choose to import innovation, quality, and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Belgian MP Sam van Rooy accused the government of singling out Israel, while turning a blind eye to issues in other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that an import ban on products from Samaria and Judea would also hurt tens of thousands of Palestinians \u2013 I have seen that with my own eyes \u2013 doesn\u2019t matter to you in the slightest,\u201d he said. \u201cYou are equally silent about the Christians in Africa and the Middle East who are slaughtered every week \u2013 sometimes every day \u2013 by Islamist terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suggested the dogged focus on Israel may derive from electoral calculations, given there are 25 times as many Muslims as Jews in Belgium.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International welcomed the ban.<\/p>\n

Nathalie Janne, advocacy officer for Amnesty International\u2019s French-speaking Belgian section, said: \u201cToo few states are taking concrete steps today to end Israel\u2019s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory or impunity for the genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the apartheid system imposed on the Palestinian people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough this agreement has been long overdue and far from perfect, it is still a step forward to Belgium\u2019s credit. This initiative increases the pressure for the adoption of such a measure at the level of the European Union, even though several Member States have adopted various forms of bans on settlement products; the calls for harmonized European action by the European Commission are thus becoming more and more insistent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Various NGOs have also criticized the ban for only applying to settlements in the West Bank and not in the Golan Heights, which they consider to be illegally occupied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no rational argument for not including the Golan Heights,\u201d said Rikkert Horemans, Israel-Palestine policy officer at the NGO Broederlijk Delen.<\/p>\n

\u201cBelgium and the European Union do not recognize the Israeli annexation of the Golan and have been treating the area in the same way as other Israeli-occupied territories for years. Those who argue not to include the Golan do so not for legal or practical reasons, but to spare Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, NGOs have highlighted the fact that settlement goods will still be able to enter through the back door, in other words, from third-party European countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Belgian federal government has adopted by royal decree an import ban on goods from Israeli settlements in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3312,1485,17153,15,4336,41681,511,11784,34523,110,13138],"class_list":["post-97547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-europe","tag-antisemitism","tag-belgium","tag-diaspora","tag-european","tag-global-trade","tag-judea-and-samaria","tag-sanctions","tag-settlements","tag-sharren-haskel","tag-trade","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}