Banning UK trade with illegal Israeli settlements is long overdue<\/p>\n
EXPERT COMMENT<\/p>\n
It would be a natural extension of current UK positions, and parliament\u2019s cross-party Foreign Affairs Committee has recommended a formal ban for over a year.<\/p>\n
Israeli settlement expansion, land appropriation, and escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank represent some of the most outstanding obstacles to realizing a sovereign Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel, a long-standing pillar of the UK\u2019s Middle East policy.<\/p>\n
As such, the new Labour government under Prime Minister Andy Burnham should prohibit <\/a>UK trade with Israel\u2019s illegal settlements. This step would align UK trade with international law, uphold the UK\u2019s recognition of Palestinian statehood, and stop sustaining the worsening situation in the West Bank \u2013 which I witnessed first-hand during a fieldwork visit this summer.<\/p>\n The rationale for such a move is clear. As successive UK governments have long acknowledged, Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law. They violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention,<\/a> which holds that an \u2018occupying power shall not transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.\u2019<\/p>\n