UK lawyers seek travel and financial sanctions against Netanyahu
British lawyers have filed a request to the UK foreign secretary to impose financial and travel sanctions on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over crimes against Palestinians.
British law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn made the request earlier this week on behalf of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK).
The rights group said it had laid out to Yvette Cooper, the UK’s foreign secretary, extensive evidence of Netanyahu’s suspected involvement in violations of international law in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
The submission stated that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Netanyahu’s statements amounted to incitement to commit prohibited acts with an “intent to destroy in whole, or in part, the Palestinian people in Gaza”. Such intent, it said, amounts to incitement to commit genocide.
“Activating the Magnitsky sanctions regime against Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer a political option, but a legal and moral necessity,” Mohammed Jamil, chair of AOHR UK, told Middle East Eye.
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Those sanctions, named after Sergei Magnitsky – the Russian tax adviser who uncovered large-scale tax fraud committed by Moscow officials – target figures responsible for human rights violations or corruption.
Magnitsky legislation seeks to block the perpetrators of abuses from accessing financial systems and from travel to countries where the sanctions are imposed.
UK's reputation 'already damaged'
“The UK cannot restore its international standing or safeguard its legal system except by using the available tools without distinction between ally and adversary – foremost among them the Magnitsky regime – to affirm that no one is above accountability,” said Jamil.
He added that the UK’s reputation had already been damaged by its “silence in the face of genocide”, as well as its continuation of providing Israel with “military, security, political and economic support”.
'The UK cannot restore its international standing… except by using the available tools without distinction between ally and adversary'
– Mohammed Jamil, chair of AOHR UK
The submission uses evidence from findings and verdicts by several global institutions, including the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and United Nations bodies.
It posits that Israeli actions against Palestinians were the result of high-level political authorisation, as opposed to decisions made by subordinate officials.
One of the examples it cites is Netanyahu invoking, in October 2023, the biblical “Amalek”, an ancient enemy of Israel, calling on troops to “remember what Amalek has done to you”.
That rhetoric was cited by South Africa as an example of incitement in its case at the ICJ accusing Israel of genocide.
It also cites the prime minister’s role in illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank, including approving the E1 settlement – a project which an Israeli minister said “erases" the idea of a Palestinian state.
The filing says that these decisions in the West Bank amount to de facto annexation and forcible displacement, contradicting both ICJ rulings and the UK’s own government policy.
In June last year, the UK, along with a string of other western countries, imposed sanctions on Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, and Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, over inciting settler violence in the West Bank.
UK history of sanctions on sitting leaders
The filing this week says that the Israeli premier meets the threshold to be designated under the UK’s Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020.
That legislation imposes asset freezes and travel restrictions for individuals responsible for serious human rights violations.
AOHR UK said its request marked the first attempt to target a sitting Israeli leader under the UK's 2020 sanctions regime.
Netanyahu is already restricted from travelling to the UK, after he was issued an arrest warrant, alongside Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister, over war crimes committed in Gaza.
That warrant means that all 125 members of the Rome Statute are compelled to arrest Netanyahu and hand them over to the court.
The UK has implied that it would comply with its obligation and arrest the Israeli leader if he sets foot on British soil.
France said that Netanyahu was “immune” from arrest as a sitting head of government, a claim that legal experts told MEE was contrary to international law.
When it comes to UK sanctions, Jamil notes that the UK has a history of imposing them on sitting heads of government.
“The imposition of sanctions in the UK is a legal administrative measure of a preventive nature that does not take into account the status or position of the targeted individual,” he said.
“Indeed, Britain has previously imposed direct sanctions on sitting heads of state and heads of government, including Vladimir Putin, Aleksandr Lukashenko and Bashar al-Assad.”
He added that refusing to apply Magnitsky legislation in the case of Netanyahu would not reflect a legal constraint, “but a political decision that entrenches double standards and undermines Britain’s credibility as a state governed by the rule of law”.
The UK foreign office did not comment on the sanctions request.
Deighton Pierce Glynn said that if the UK government does not respond to the filing, it will “consider taking formal legal steps over the issue”.
“If the government does not respond then the decision not to take action could be subject to judicial review,” a representative at the law firm told MEE.
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