British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband on Tuesday announced a sweeping sanctions package targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank as well as a range of other punitive measures, during a speech in the House of Commons featuring Britain’s strongest-ever criticism of the settlement enterprise.

Shortly after the speech, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden released a joint statement confirming they would also “introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements,” or were at least “actively considering” doing so.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar lambasted the sanctions, calling them “antisemitic” and “morally distorted,” and announced several counter-measures, including the closure of the UK’s consulate in Jerusalem serving Palestinians. Opposition politicians also rejected London’s decision, but cast it as a diplomatic failure by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

In his speech, Miliband denounced what he called Israel’s entirely “unlawful occupation” of the West Bank and decried spiraling instances of settler violence against Palestinians, saying “settler terrorism is rampant,” and citing United Nations reports of an “average of six violent settler attacks against Palestinians per day this year, the highest on record.”

He added that the “British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank – perpetrated by settler terrorists,” charging that “the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and, worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.”

In his remarks, Miliband said London would impose an import ban on goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, sanction companies and individuals that facilitate settlement expansion, and refuse licenses for arms and other exports deemed to materially support Israel’s “occupation,” adding that France and Canada will also impose an import ban, with additional countries set to “support further action.”

“The unlawfulness of the occupation should be reflected in the economic relationships we choose to have with the occupied territories,” Miliband said, noting that the import bans and a ban on advertising settlements in the UK would form part of a new “comprehensive sanctions regime” expected to take effect within six to nine months, with what he called “appropriate religious exemptions.”

The regime would also “take action against specific companies and individuals who provide services such as construction, infrastructure, financing, or real estate for settlement expansion,” he said.

Miliband stressed that the UK would continue trading with Israel inside the Green Line and opposed the broader Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

The government was also taking several “immediate” steps, he said, including sanctioning a group of extremist settlers accused of supporting or inciting violence against Palestinians; expanding the UK’s existing global human-rights sanctions framework to enable swifter action against settlement expansion, including the E1 project; and refusing all license applications for arms and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation.”

UK says entire ‘occupation’ of West Bank is ‘unlawful’

He declared for the first time that the British government now considers Israel’s........

© The Times of Israel