{"id":604050,"date":"2026-09-02T22:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T22:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/604050\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T22:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T22:10:14","slug":"the-guardian-view-on-israeli-settlements-britain-can-no-longer-look-away-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/604050\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian view on Israeli settlements: Britain can no longer look away | Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Commons this week, the foreign secretary, Ed\u00a0Miliband, appeared to have accepted the principle of a trade ban between the UK and Israeli settlements, which Britain says are illegal under international law. This is long overdue. The test now is whether his promised \u201ccomprehensive reset<\/a>\u201d deserves the name. Stopping settlement-produced goods at the border is not enough. Britain should prohibit its companies from sustaining<\/a> settlement activity \u2013 by financing, constructing, insuring, advertising \u2013 in territory whose\u00a0occupation it regards as unlawful. The ban must\u00a0have\u00a0teeth.<\/p>\n

The UK can no longer ignore the violence and pressure<\/a> exerted on Palestinians in the West Bank by Israel\u2019s government, military and settlers. There have been more than 1,400 settler attacks so far this year, according to the UN, against a record 1,800 registered in 2025. An election campaign has only made matters worse. Last month, Israel issued tenders for 1,234 homes in the 3,401<\/a>-unit E1 development east of Jerusalem. The country\u2019s ministers gave the green light for the controversial settlement \u2013 long condemned for effectively bisecting the West Bank \u2013 expressly to \u201cerase<\/a>\u201d the idea of a Palestinian state, the creation of which the UK officially supports.<\/p>\n

Israeli ministers have reacted<\/a> with fury, threatening retaliation if Britain imposes sanctions over settlement expansion. This is disappointing, but hardly surprising. Benjamin Netanyahu has accused countries imposing sanctions of \u201cmoral bankruptcy<\/a>\u201d. Yet Britain would be following several comparable European<\/a> states that increasingly regard such bans as a consequence of international law. Spain has banned settlement imports; Norway is legislating against trade and services linked to settlements; nine EU governments have demanded action from Brussels.<\/p>\n

Ed Miliband Photograph: Ian Davidson\/SOPA Images\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Since 1967, Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jewish people among 3.3 million Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. There are now calls to suspend<\/a> the EU\u2019s trade agreement with Israel. Britain has such a deal<\/a> and, under Sir Keir Starmer, Labour wanted<\/a> to \u201cdistinguish and protect trade with people and businesses across the state of Israel\u201d. This gave critics reason to warn that targeting settlements could end up as a \u201cde facto<\/a>\u201d boycott of Israel. But that gets the argument backwards: Israel cannot make the settlements part of its economy and then argue that other nations must treat them as part of the country.<\/p>\n

Mr Miliband has political room to manoeuvre. Polling suggests<\/a> that even Reform UK and Conservative voters are more likely to support than oppose a settlement trade ban. In parliament there was agreement<\/a> stretching from the Greens to Labour to Tory\u00a0MPs that something has to be done.<\/p>\n

Settlement expansion accelerated after Mr\u00a0Netanyahu\u2019s far-right coalition took power in 2022 and then again after Hamas\u2019s murderous attack sparked the Gaza war in 2023. The legal case is clear: other nations are acting and the political space is opening up \u2013 all while creeping annexation becomes a reality. Israel is extending<\/a> civilian control over occupied territory as settlements expand. Gaza, where more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed, has understandably commanded the world\u2019s attention. No one disputes that Israel exists in a violent and unstable neighbourhood, though its actions aggravate, rather than alleviate, that instability. But the West\u00a0Bank and Jerusalem cannot\u00a0be ignored. Security cannot\u00a0justify\u00a0an\u00a0ideological land\u00a0grab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the Commons this week, the foreign secretary, Ed\u00a0Miliband, appeared to have accepted the principle of a trade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-604050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}