T<\/p>\n
welve countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Canada, have announced plans to introduce or support restrictions on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, marking a significant diplomatic challenge to Israel\u2019s settlement policy.<\/p>\n
The foreign ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK said Tuesday that they intended to introduce national measures or support European restrictions on trade in goods from Israeli settlements, which they described as illegal under international law.<\/p>\n
The countries said Israel\u2019s actions in the West Bank were undermining the possibility of achieving a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.<\/p>\n
The announcement followed a decision by Britain to impose an import ban on goods originating from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told Parliament that Canada and France would also introduce similar bans, while several other European countries pledged to support additional measures.<\/p>\n
Miliband said Britain would also establish a comprehensive sanctions regime, arguing that London could no longer simply condemn what it considers injustice and suffering without taking concrete action.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday we refuse to be bystanders,\u201d Miliband said, linking the measures to Britain\u2019s long-standing support for a two-state solution.<\/p>\n
The announcement represents a notable shift in Britain\u2019s approach to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Miliband said the UK considers Israel\u2019s occupation of the West Bank unlawful and believes Palestinians are facing ethnic cleansing in parts of the territory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"T welve countries, including the United Kingdom, France and Canada, have announced plans to introduce or support restrictions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-610527","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\/610527","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=610527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}