FOREIGN Secretary Ed Miliband told the House of Commons on Tuesday that Israeli ‘settler terrorists’ are carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank with the tacit backing of the Israeli government.
He announced that Britain recognises the occupation as unlawful in its entirety and, alongside 11 other countries, will ban trade with the illegal settlements.
‘The British government agrees that there is an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,’ Miliband said.
‘All too often 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.
‘I recognise the gravity of saying this, but the truth is the least the people who face such suffering deserve. And it should be the prelude to justice.’
The measures comprise an import ban on settlement goods, a sanctions regime against providing construction, financing or other services to settlements, a ban on advertising settlement properties in the UK, personal sanctions on individuals promoting settler violence, and a refusal of all arms and export licences that ‘materially contribute to the occupation’.
Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden announced parallel sanctions. Prime Minister Andy Burnham briefed Donald Trump and Gulf governments including Qatar on Monday.
Miliband spoke of a ‘deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community’ and of ‘the most unimaginable trauma and suffering in the last three years, death, destruction and dehumanisation on an appalling scale’.
Israel then ordered the closure of the UK consulate in occupied East Jerusalem and banned 12 Britons, including 11 MPs, from entering the country in retaliation for Tuesday’s ban on trade with illegal West Bank settlements.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced four ‘counter-measures’ within hours of Miliband telling Parliament that the UK regards the entire occupation of the West Bank as illegal and that ‘settler terrorists’ are carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ while the Netanyahu government turns a ‘blind eye’.
The consulate is expected to shut within 30 days.
Sa’ar later telephoned Tory leader Kemi Badenoch to thank her for opposing the sanctions, after she accused Labour of anti-semitism.
In broadcast interviews yesterday morning, Miliband called the Israeli measures ‘regrettable and damaging’ and said the consulate closure would be ‘damaging for the Palestinian people’.
‘But it is right to act because the bigger danger here is the wider suffering and oppression of the Palestinian people, which is continuing unabated and we have a responsibility to seek to make a difference to that,’ he said.
The government had feared that waiting longer would leave it ‘too late’ for a two-state solution, which he said was ‘being destroyed by the facts on the ground’, pointing to the tender for construction of a large new settlement between Jerusalem and the West Bank, named E1, which Israel’s far-right finance minister has said would ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’.
Miliband was ‘confident’ the sanctions would be enforced and said they would seek to ‘have an impact on the services provided to expand the occupation’, declining to say whether Israeli banks would be covered.
Describing himself as a ‘proud British Jew’, Miliband rejected the Chief Rabbi’s description of the announcement as ‘a truly dark day for British Jews’, saying that Britain could uphold the rule of law and counter anti-semitism at the same time.
Meanwhile, six Jewish rabbis have stated that they support the sanctions.
The TUC Congress meets this Sunday, 13th September. There is not the slightest doubt that it must call a general strike of all of its millions of members to establish the State of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital and with all Palestinians having the right to return!
FOREIGN Secretary Ed Miliband told the House of Commons on Tuesday that Israeli ‘settler terrorists’ are carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank with the tacit backing of the Israeli government.
He announced that Britain recognises the occupation as unlawful in its entirety and, alongside 11 other countries, will ban trade with the illegal settlements.
‘The British government agrees that there is an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,’ Miliband said.
‘All too often 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.
‘I recognise the gravity of saying this, but the truth is the least the people who face such suffering deserve. And it should be the prelude to justice.’
The measures comprise an import ban on settlement goods, a sanctions regime against providing construction, financing or other services to settlements, a ban on advertising settlement properties in the UK, personal sanctions on individuals promoting settler violence, and a refusal of all arms and export licences that ‘materially contribute to the occupation’.
Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden announced parallel sanctions. Prime Minister Andy Burnham briefed Donald Trump and Gulf governments including Qatar on Monday.
Miliband spoke of a ‘deep sense of shame about what has unfolded in Palestine under the eyes of the international community’ and of ‘the most unimaginable trauma and suffering in the last three years, death, destruction and dehumanisation on an appalling scale’.
Israel then ordered the closure of the UK consulate in occupied East Jerusalem and banned 12 Britons, including 11 MPs, from entering the country in retaliation for Tuesday’s ban on trade with illegal West Bank settlements.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced four ‘counter-measures’ within hours of Miliband telling Parliament that the UK regards the entire occupation of the West Bank as illegal and that ‘settler terrorists’ are carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ while the Netanyahu government turns a ‘blind eye’.
The consulate is expected to shut within 30 days.
Sa’ar later telephoned Tory leader Kemi Badenoch to thank her for opposing the sanctions, after she accused Labour of anti-semitism.
In broadcast interviews yesterday morning, Miliband called the Israeli measures ‘regrettable and damaging’ and said the consulate closure would be ‘damaging for the Palestinian people’.
‘But it is right to act because the bigger danger here is the wider suffering and oppression of the Palestinian people, which is continuing unabated and we have a responsibility to seek to make a difference to that,’ he said.
The government had feared that waiting longer would leave it ‘too late’ for a two-state solution, which he said was ‘being destroyed by the facts on the ground’, pointing to the tender for construction of a large new settlement between Jerusalem and the West Bank, named E1, which Israel’s far-right finance minister has said would ‘bury the idea of a Palestinian state’.
Miliband was ‘confident’ the sanctions would be enforced and said they would seek to ‘have an impact on the services provided to expand the occupation’, declining to say whether Israeli banks would be covered.
Describing himself as a ‘proud British Jew’, Miliband rejected the Chief Rabbi’s description of the announcement as ‘a truly dark day for British Jews’, saying that Britain could uphold the rule of law and counter anti-semitism at the same time.
Meanwhile, six Jewish rabbis have stated that they support the sanctions.
The TUC Congress meets this Sunday, 13th September. There is not the slightest doubt that it must call a general strike of all of its millions of members to establish the State of Palestine, with Jerusalem as its capital and with all Palestinians having the right to return!