Falklands,<\/a> an overseas UK territory that Argentina claims, in retaliation.<\/p>\nSmotrich, Israel\u2019s finance minister, called for the expulsion of the British ambassador.<\/p>\n
How has the US responded?<\/p>\n
Burnham spoke with President Donald Trump in a phone call on Monday and stressed the importance of a two-state solution, UK media reported. Trump has, however, not commented on the new ban.<\/p>\n
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has not minced words, however. Over the weekend, he accused the UK government of \u201cJew hate\u201d. He described any plan for sanctions or trading bans as \u201cdiscrimination against the Jewish people\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if [the British government is] really aware of the implications and how it\u2019s going to affect Brits,\u201d he told the UK\u2019s BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Huckabee claimed that 25 percent of pharmaceuticals in the UK are produced in Israel and that British businesses in the US could face \u201cgreat damage\u201d in the case of a US reprisal.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Miliband\u2019s announcement, Florida Republican congressman Randy Fine warned that UK companies could be barred from Florida and accused the UK of carrying out a \u201cvanity project in support of Muslim terror\u201d.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: \u201cWe think it has implications on our ability to make progress with regards to Gaza, on the 20-point plan and the Board of Peace that we\u2019re very committed to. Obviously we\u2019re not going to do what the UK did.\u201d<\/p>\n
What other response has there been?<\/p>\n
Palestine\u2019s Ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot said the UK\u2019s decision to impose sanctions and a trading ban was \u201clong overdue\u201d but represented a \u201cturning point in UK-Palestine relations\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, Britain begins to move from condemnation to consequences, from words to action,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Human rights groups have also welcomed the move.<\/p>\n
Human Rights Watch said the import ban and sanctions were a \u201clong-awaited and positive change in Britain\u2019s policy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International UK said the new measures could be \u201cthe sea change that is needed\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, following Miliband\u2019s address in parliament, the Jewish Leadership Council, which represents Jewish organisations in Britain, accused the government of placing an \u201cincreased target on British Jews\u201d.<\/p>\n
The council said the move was \u201cdeeply irresponsible\u201d and claimed that the government was \u201cyielding to pressure from the most extreme elements of British society\u201d.<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said it was a \u201ctruly a dark day for British Jews\u201d and warned that they would be at greater risk of extremist attacks as a result.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday our government has chosen to ignore the deep concerns expressed by so many of us,\u201d he wrote on X. \u201cThese measures will succeed only in bolstering the very extremism they seek to target.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does the ban go far enough?<\/p>\n
Under former prime minister Keir Starmer, the UK\u2019s Labour Party was strongly criticised for failing to take action over Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza and the pogroms against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank. This was an issue that the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, pledged to correct when he took over as leader.<\/p>\n
But the ban on Israeli settlement products represents less than 1 percent of UK-Israel trade.<\/p>\n
Zena Agha, interim director of the British Palestinian Committee, which advocates for Palestinian rights in the UK, told Al Jazeera the move is a \u201cbare minimum\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are measures we would expect any government to take in accordance with the international legal framework to which it subscribes. So it shouldn\u2019t be celebrated in that regard. Nevertheless, it is something which the previous administration didn\u2019t do, and so it should be welcomed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Advocates say the ban\u2019s proper implementation is crucial.<\/p>\n
Chris Doyle of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, which has long lobbied for a trade ban with Israel, said it is important to ensure products from settlements are not misleadingly labelled as being from Israel. He also called for a ban on all investments and financial services in the settlements.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrading with these settlements should never have been allowed in the first place, built as they are in occupied territory, on the land and resources of Palestinians,\u201d Doyle said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what we are seeing here is, for the first time, Britain is taking significant action against illegal settlements. It\u2019s long overdue. We\u2019ve heard previous prime ministers from Thatcher to Blair to Cameron all saying settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace, but they did nothing \u2026 It should act as encouragement for other European actors to do the same \u2026 Collectively this will make a difference as the EU is Israel\u2019s largest trading partner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the extent of what he said were Israeli war crimes in Palestine, however, \u201cthe UK must be prepared to go further in the event that Israel does not end its settlement enterprise\u201d, Doyle added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Kingdom has announced a ban on the import of all goods produced by illegal Israeli settlements…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1051415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[113,44436,79,440,337,118,3497,99,13191,18151,3097,50,42440,4851,7237,376,32405,103],"class_list":["post-1051414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-conflict","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-economy","tag-europe","tag-explainer","tag-human-rights","tag-humanitarian-crises","tag-israel","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-jordan","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-occupied-west-bank","tag-palestine","tag-protests","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117236970890557019","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1051415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"INTERACTIVE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/INTERACTIVE-Occupied-West-Bank-settlement-expansion-JULY-27-2026-1785159012.png\")
(Al Jazeera)What is being banned?<\/p>\n