The UK's failure to enforce a ban on trade with Israel's illegal settlements must end
For decades, successive UK governments have held the position that Israel’s settlements on occupied Palestinian land are illegal under international law.
Despite having this clear legal position, the perfidy and hypocrisy of the UK government is without end.
The government has both a moral and a legal duty under international law to prohibit all UK investment and trade with the settlement enterprise of any country that has transferred its own civilian population into occupied territories - an activity constituting a grievous breach of the peremptory norms of international law.
Since 1967, Israel has seized thousands of dunams of Palestinian land to establish its illegal settlements, part of a long-held strategy to ethnically cleanse Palestinians and hem them into tiny bantustans.
Israel’s overarching goal is to annex the West Bank with as few Palestinians on the land as possible - this long-held policy of "maximum Jews minimum Palestinians" is being implemented in real time with 40,000 Palestinians recently having been forcibly displaced from Jenin and last year's erasure of at least 50 entire communities.
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In establishing illegal settlements, Israel has created facts on the ground to ensure that a Palestinian state is rendered impossible.
Toothless response
Yet despite the UK government acknowledging that these activities threaten peace and the physical viability of a two-state solution, our toothless government has failed to impose meaningful sanctions, while continuing to allow the import and sale of illegal settlement goods.
Nothing of substance has been done to uphold the UK’s obligations to isolate Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise
This runs counter to the nation’s duty under international law. It is a deliberate choice that has rendered our government complicit in Israel’s criminality and violent systematic oppression of the Palestinian people.
The government has avoided publishing a formal response to the July 2024 findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which deemed Israel’s decades-long occupation to be unlawful and highlighted the global community’s responsibility to act accordingly.
The UK has a duty to not render aid or assistance to Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise and to bring to an end serious breaches of peremptory norms of international law.
In refusing to prohibit such activities, the UK stands in violation of its obligation to not recognise as legal the situation arising from Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territories. All of this is clearly a violation of the obligations and duties of third states which could result in the UK being held legally culpable in Israel's violations.
Bare minimum
In recent years, the UK government has been given multiple opportunities to impose a ban on the importation of goods from illegal Israeli settlements. But despite rhetorical condemnation, the only practical measures taken have been to exclude these goods from tariff and trade preferences, while advising UK businesses “to bear in mind” that Israel’s settlements are illegal under international law.
Nothing of substance has been done to uphold the UK’s obligations to isolate Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise and bring an end to these serious breaches of international law, which at the bare minimum should entail a ban on purchases or investments in that enterprise.
By allowing the continuation of economic activities, including charitable work, with Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise through a refusal to implement a strict ban, the UK is effectively disregarding the ICJ’s advice that third states must “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
Rather outrageously, in a recent session of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer acknowledged that products from Israel’s illegal settlements are sold in the UK, and that it’s up to individual businesses to decide whether to stock them.
Turning this into an optional choice provides a convenient loophole that shifts the burden of action away from the government and onto individual business and trading entities themselves.
This effectively green-lights such economic ties. Without further progress on the matter, including an immediate shift in policy to ban all economic activity involving illegal settlements, we are complicit as a country in the violent oppression of Palestinians and the occupation of Palestinian land - and failing to live up to our obligated duties under international law.
The UK should immediately enact a full trade ban and prohibit any economic activities with Israel’s illegal settlements. Should the government continue to evade its duties, then the dozens of MPs who last month issued a letter demanding such a ban, must act to bring a private members’ bill to this effect, similar to the legislation Ireland is considering.
Without further progress on the matter, we are complicit as a country in the violent oppression of Palestinians
Our devolved assemblies and parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should also implement their own bans within their jurisdictions, and local authorities should take steps to implement ethical investment policies to ensure their assets and pension funds are not tied to any illegal settlement enterprises too.
Without such a move, the government cannot continue claiming to oppose settlements. Our government must be consistent in its application and upholding of international law, or else face severe legal consequences for continued their inaction.
We may also soon see cases arise where Palestinians living in the United Kingdom rightfully take up legal action against businesses and companies that ignore the UK government's advice by continuing their economic activities with illegal settlements - a matter that should be seen as a clear warning to all.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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