{"id":765626,"date":"2026-09-10T01:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T01:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/765626\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T01:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T01:18:09","slug":"its-a-good-start-prominent-israelis-welcome-uk-sanctions-on-illegal-settlements-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/765626\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s a good start\u2019: prominent Israelis welcome UK sanctions on illegal settlements | Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prominent Israelis have welcomed new UK sanctions<\/a> as a necessary response to settlement expansion and spiralling violence in the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n

The intervention was described \u2013 by the president of the Israel<\/a> Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a former prime minister, an ex-head of the army and former ministers and diplomats \u2013 as an \u201cinevitable consequence\u201d of Israeli government and security failures.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanctions [are being imposed] against Jewish terrorists, and not against the legitimacy of the state of Israel,\u201d they wrote in a joint statement. \u201cThere is no basis to the [Israeli] government\u2019s response that the decision to impose sanctions against Jewish terrorists is an expression of antisemitism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, had indicated Britain was planning new sanctions but the strength of his language and the scale of the controls he announced on Tuesday were a surprise.<\/p>\n

It was the most significant attempt in many years, from a close Israeli ally, to leverage economic power to force change in the occupied West Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael\u2019s government has caused a rupture in the longest-standing diplomatic convention of all: using obfuscation and plenty of \u2018very concerned\u2019 statements instead of actually doing anything,\u201d Esther Solomon wrote in the Haaretz newspaper.<\/p>\n

The impact was multiplied when France and Canada announced plans for trade bans on settlement goods and 10 other European countries backed similar measures. Nor did any senior figure in the Trump administration, which was briefed in advance on the UK plans, criticise the measures.<\/p>\n

The Jewish settlement of Karnei Shomron, north-east of Tel Aviv. A poll suggests almost three-quarters of Jewish Israelis want to annex the occupied West Bank. Photograph: Amir Levy\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cJerusalem had prepared for rain, but what arrived yesterday was a full-blown storm,\u201d Itamar Eichner wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth. \u201cYesterday Israel was caught off guard, to the point that senior Israeli officials used the term \u2018an intelligence-diplomatic failure\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nearly three-quarters of Jewish Israelis favour partial or total annexation of the occupied West Bank, a poll<\/a> for the Jewish People Policy Institute found. All leading candidates in the upcoming election reject a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

However, there is increasingly vocal opposition to settler violence and expansion from some members of the country\u2019s security, political and cultural elites. They threatened legal action against their government this summer over its support for Jewish terrorism and an \u201cideology of ethnic cleansing\u201d in the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n

Prof David Harel, British-born president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, is among those who signed a statement backing the UK measures.<\/p>\n

He said the sanctions offered urgently needed support for Israelis like him, who are trying to stop attacks on Palestinians and end the occupation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally would fight until my last breath against antisemitism and against anti-Israelism. For that reason, I\u2019m against general wall-to-wall boycott, divest, sanction-style sanctions on the state of Israel,\u201d the leading scientist told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut what is justified, and I do support, is being anti things that Israel is doing, and these days in particular what it is doing in the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that Israelis calling for a delay until after the elections were ignoring both the escalating violence that Palestinians faced every day and the risks the occupation posed to Israel\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting out of there [occupied Palestine], or, at least for the present, stopping these things from happening and starting to really talk about a two-state solution is not only good for the Palestinians. It\u2019s not that we\u2019re doing these poor people a favour. We\u2019re doing a favour to ourselves, no less, maybe even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The joint statement backing the UK sanctions was also signed by former prime minister Ehud Olmert, former commander of the Israeli military Dan Halutz, former ministers Yuli Tamir and Roni Bar-On and former ambassador to Germany Yoram Ben Zeev.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision is precisely what the state of Israel should have received in order to remove the disgrace of Jewish terrorism from the face of the country,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n

Map showing countries with sanctions on Israeli settlements<\/a><\/p>\n

Nadav Tamir, a former diplomat, also described the measures as good for Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny move to prevent annexation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in the West Bank [and Gaza] is serving the long-term interests of the Zionist vision of Israel as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt will help us to be more secure and moral.\u201d<\/p>\n

The value of goods exported from occupied territories to Britain last year was only $45m (\u00a333m) out of total $4.4bn trade in goods and services, according to Roey Fisher, head of Israel\u2019s Foreign Trade Administration.<\/p>\n

However, plans to place sanctions on any company that finances or facilitates settlement expansion could force Israel\u2019s main banks and insurance companies to choose between their business interests in the UK and those in occupied Palestine.<\/p>\n

Miliband has not provided details of the new measures but the move has the potential to slow or stop construction.<\/p>\n

Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Knesset, thanked Miliband for setting a global example. \u201cLike many Israelis and Palestinians I am grateful for the courageous moral leadership of Miliband. It\u2019s a good beginning. Do not stop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Israel\u2019s foreign minister, Gideon Sa\u2019ar, attacked Miliband for \u201cblatant interference\u201d in his country\u2019s domestic affairs before a late October election. Opposition politicians suggested instead that Benjamin Netanyahu might weaponise the UK sanctions to bolster his campaign to remain prime minister.<\/p>\n

Gideon Sa\u2019ar, Israel\u2019s foreign minister (left), strikes a deal with his Slovenian counterpart, Tone Kajzer, in Ljubljana on Wednesday. He said the UK sanctions were \u2018blatant interference\u2019 in Israeli affairs. Photograph: Darko Bandi\u0107\/AP<\/p>\n

Dahlia Scheindlin<\/a>, one of Israel\u2019s leading political analysts, said the UK move was very unlikely to affect the October election, because Israeli voters were more focused on domestic issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince 7 October [2023], Israel has become much more inward-looking and provincial, and generally the attitude to the rest of the world is just that \u2018they all hate us\u2019,\u201d Scheindlin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you are a Netanyahu supporter you might take this as evidence that they are against us because of antisemitism, and if you are in the opposition camp you might take this as further evidence that the world is turning against us because of Netanyahu\u2019s policies. But it\u2019s hard to see how these policies change the breakdown of the electoral map.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miliband made his speech on a day when political parties finalised their candidate lists and Haaretz had a bombshell story about security warnings delivered to Netanyahu<\/a> \u2013 and apparently ignored \u2013 before the 7 October attacks.<\/p>\n

Fourteen Israeli human rights organisations welcomed the sanctions. \u201cThis is an important and necessary first step to meet states\u2019 legal obligation,\u201d said the statement from groups including B\u2019Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and Breaking the Silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge the international community to take further concrete measures to ensure that its relations with Israel no longer enable Israel\u2019s settlement enterprise, forced displacement and ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank, or its broader assault on Palestinian human rights across all territories under its control.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prominent Israelis have welcomed new UK sanctions as a necessary response to settlement expansion and spiralling violence in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":765627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-765626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=765626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/765626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/765627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=765626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=765626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=765626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}