{"id":1191506,"date":"2026-09-07T14:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T14:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1191506\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T14:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T14:07:17","slug":"britains-west-bank-sanctions-could-change-europes-approach-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1191506\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s West Bank sanctions could change Europe\u2019s approach to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The political impact of the UK\u2019s decision to take sanctions measures<\/a>, against Israeli interests linked to illegal settlements in the West Bank, is playing out even before the details of the package are known.<\/p>\n

It is fair to say that there is an underlying tone to the commentary that is both potent and personal. Personal because the figurehead for the announcement is UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who is Jewish. It is not only his critics who have made this association; even the governing Labour party\u2019s briefings have alluded to Mr Miliband\u2019s biography.<\/p>\n

The Foreign Secretary\u2019s profile is important to how the announcement will play out. So, too, is the UK\u2019s history in the Middle East and its continuing role as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.<\/p>\n

The UK may have left the EU as a result of Brexit, but its impact as a European power taking this step is \u2013 perhaps \u2013 one of the most important considerations following the announcement. Last week, Mr Miliband travelled to Ireland, where the Irish presidency of the EU was holding informal consultations on issues including sanctions on Israel over developments in the Palestinian homeland.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Israeli settlers attack homes near Qusra<\/p>\n

The UK is already knitted into a European process on the issues involved through a caucus of countries that includes itself, France, Germany and Italy. This E4 caucus tends to issue statements as one. But it has begun to split on the need for action against Israel, with Germany, Italy and \u2013 to a lesser degree \u2013 France not ready to take direct targeted measures.<\/p>\n

By shifting to a more robust foreign policy<\/a> on Palestine-Israel, the UK is joining Spain, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands with a pipeline of similar bans on both direct imports and exports as well as support through financing or other ties to the economic activities taking place in the settlements. As the Chatham House scholar Julie Norman pointed out in her latest analysis, the current government is in a position to do so because it can align its values with British interests.<\/p>\n

Government deliberations on a sanctions package has been waged behind closed doors for months, even under the leadership of former prime minister Keir Starmer who was very clear in his support for Israel\u2019s military-led response to the October 7, 2023 attacks from Gaza.<\/p>\n

After winning the leadership, new Prime Minister Andy Burnham used one of his first video messages to say that Labour\u2019s policy approach since 2024 had been \u201cwrong\u201d<\/a>. \u201cThe response has too often not been good enough,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to do better.\u201d That was a clear values-based judgment for the new government, and the scheduled announcement on Tuesday is a manifestation of those words.<\/p>\n

One of the strongest proponents of the package within government has been Ed Llewellyn, the Foreign Office\u2019s political director. Mr Llewellyn had a formative experience more than 20 years ago in Sarajevo in the Balkans, where he worked for the UN\u2019s high representative to address the region\u2019s recovery from civil war atrocities. The principles that the UN-led international community adhered to, then, should be borne in mind when seeking an effective role<\/a> for the UK in Palestine and Israel going forward.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the International Court of Justice issued a ruling that obliged member states to \u201ctake steps to prevent trade or investment relations\u201d that help sustain illegal settlements in the West Bank. This is a broad advisory, but it effectively provides guidance for enforcement of the Security Council\u2019s Resolution 2334, adopted in 2016, that found that the settlements have no legal validity.<\/p>\n

By shifting to a more robust foreign policy on Palestine-Israel, the UK is joining Spain, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands<\/p>\n

It is the dire situation in Gaza that led Mr Miliband to issue an urgent plea for change late last week. It caused an outbreak of Israeli hasbara targeting the Foreign Secretary. It also prompted Mike Huckabee<\/a>, the US ambassador to Israel, to claim that the UK government was filled with \u201cJew hate\u201d. Such language is a foretaste of what is to come this week.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s move to develop the E1 corridor, which would create a land bridge blocking transit between Bethlehem, Ramallah and East Jerusalem, is designed as a blow to a two-state solution. For the UK, which under Mr Starmer took the historic decision to recognise Palestinian statehood, that is a move that cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s package, then, needs to make an impact at several levels to justify the political interests at stake.<\/p>\n

It should bolster the Palestinian claim to statehood. It should reverse UK-based involvement in the settlements. It should demonstrate that there are real consequences internationally for violations based on expanding so-called facts on the ground. Lastly, it should increase pressure on Israeli politics for a change in direction.<\/p>\n

Israel is moving into the final stages of a general election, but it would be narrowly wrong to see this step as interference in that country\u2019s domestic politics.<\/p>\n

It is, instead, right to see this as an important step in the European policy process<\/a>. For that reason, expect the UK\u2019s statement to lead to wider \u2013 and more far-reaching \u2013 efforts by the Europeans to make a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The political impact of the UK\u2019s decision to take sanctions measures, against Israeli interests linked to illegal settlements…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1191507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[8916,6505,2000,299,5187,837,391,60066,1814,1426,16,13131],"class_list":["post-1191506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-andy-burnham","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-israel","tag-opinion","tag-opinion-team","tag-palestine","tag-story","tag-uk","tag-west-bank"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117230152891171033","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1191506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1191506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1191507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1191506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1191506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1191506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}