An article published yesterday by Al Jazeera revealed that the UK has awarded new public contracts worth £10.7 million to firms with links to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
According to this investigation, £10.7 million in public contracts were published after Labour Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced in Parliament on September 8th that sanctions would be imposed on companies profiting from business with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
In his speech announcing these sanctions, Miliband said he was ‘confident’ they would be enforced and that they would ‘have an impact on the services provided to expand the occupation’.
Despite Miliband’s decision to impose sanctions on companies doing business with and aiding the expansion of Zionist settlements, it appears that it’s business as usual for these companies and has not prevented them from profiting from UK taxpayers’ money.
Neve Gordon, a professor at Queen Mary University school of law, told Al Jazeera that the companies ‘appear to be in breach of their legal obligations under international humanitarian law.’
He added: ‘Any UK company that is involved in the occupation is likely to be in direct breach of the sanctions regime Ed Miliband is putting in place.’
A previous investigation by Al Jazeera in August revealed at least 17 companies linked to illegal Zionist settlements in the occupied West Bank have been awarded over £2.1 billion of UK public sector contracts.
Since Miliband’s sanction regime, a further 18 public service contracts with firms linked to illegal settlements have been published.
Clearly, these firms are not overly concerned that Miliband and the Labour government intend to pursue these ‘sanctions’ with any great zeal.
In fact, the sanctions Miliband is imposing are just window dressing, along with prime minister Andy Burnham’s ‘apology’ for Labour’s position of giving full support to a genocidal war in Gaza – a war that has killed over 75,000 Palestinians (mainly women and children) including over 1,600 since the ‘ceasefire’ last year.
While Miliband told the House of Commons that Israeli ‘settler terrorists’ are carrying out ethnic cleansing in the West Bank with the tacit backing of the Israeli government, he refused to name the Israeli state as being guilty of genocide.
In the occupied West Bank, Zionist settlers, supported by Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), are continuing their escalating attacks on Palestinians during the crucial olive harvest season.
377 harvest-related attacks by Israeli settlers have been reported since October 1st alone, with 457 attacks causing casualties or damage reported across the occupied West Bank.
In Britain, the Labour government is sitting back and allowing firms financially connected with the genocidal campaign to ethnically cleanse Gaza and the occupied West Bank to win contracts worth millions from public services.
All Burnham and Miliband can offer are ‘symbolic’ sanctions and expressions of regret for past ‘mistakes’ in an effort to head off the anger of workers and youth.
If Labour is showing no zeal in imposing sanctions on companies profiting from illegal settlements, then it is zealously pursuing a campaign against those who oppose genocide.
320 peaceful protesters were arrested on October 31 for holding placards at a demonstration outside the US embassy in London proclaiming opposition to genocide and support for Palestine Action – the group designated a ‘terrorist’ organisation in July 2025 by the Labour government – bringing the total number of arrests up to at least 4,000.
The working class and youth in Britain and across the world have shown their support for the Palestinians who have been resolute in their determination not to be driven from their land and homes despite the genocidal attacks from settlers and the Zionist state.
The time has come for the working class in Britain to end the complicity with genocide by forcing the TUC to call a general strike to bring down the Labour government and bring in a workers government that will immediately recognise the independent State of Palestine and provide it with all the financial and military support required for the victory of the Palestinian revolution.
