Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband imposes West Bank Sanctions…

To some of us the choice of Ed Miliband as Foreign Secretary by Andy Burnham was a surprising one.  If you had to pick someone who was likely to get on with President Trump, a green energy, windmill-loving lefty like Ed Miliband seemed like a poor choice.  The switch from climate change and net-zero policies to international relations was stark and unexpected.

However, after Tuesday’s speech on foreign policy in the Commons, the wisdom of this move became apparent – few others could have delivered this so well.

In a well-prepared speech, Ed Miliband outlined a major shift in UK policy with a package of sweeping sanctions and trade restrictions targeting illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Mr Miliband made it clear that his aim was to target economic activity supporting settlement expansion and protect the viability of a two-state solution.

Significantly, the eloquence with which a British Jew, Mr Ed Miliband, denounced the Israeli government will sting. He announced that the British government now regards Israel’s occupation of the West Bank as unlawful under international law and accused ‘settler terrorists’ of actively carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ of West Bank Palestinians and alleged that the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this.

Such accusations were expected to produce outrage from Israel, which habitually labels anyone criticising them as antisemitic, but because Mr Miliband is Jewish, he is much harder to dismiss as simply being anti-Jewish.

West Bank Settlement – Sanctions

These included:

• Import ban on settlement good AND more importantly
• Sanctions targeting financial and business organisations providing support for infrastructure or construction aiding settlement expansion.  This includes advising UK businesses against participating in economic activity with settlements
• Ban on advertising sale or promotion of settlement land and asset freezing sanctions
• Asset freezes and travel restrictions on settlers accused of violence against Palestinians.
• Ban on new export licences for weapons/military equipment used in the occupation.

Israel’s anger and pain will be compounded by background coordination leading to France and Canada enacting similar import bans with Australia and New Zealand rolling out supporting measures.  A range of other countries have declared support for similar measures; these include: Norway, Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Poland and Iceland.

Why Settlements Matter

If you want to see an end to the violence in Palestine, most people believe that your options are limited to:

1) Two-State Solution – where Israel remains a Jewish state and a Palestinian state composed of Gaza and the West Bank form an independent state.

2) Israel absorbs all of the territory of Gaza and the West Bank and absorbs the Palestinians as full Israeli citizens.  (This threatens the Jewish majority in Israel – there are too many Palestinians.)

3) Israel absorbs all the territory of Gaza and the West Bank – and expels or otherwise disposes of the unwanted Palestinians.  Some Israelis use the term ‘mowing the grass’.

Many believe that Option 3 is Israel’s chosen strategy. Israel is gradually splitting up Palestinian territory into ever smaller pieces so that a Palestinian state becomes impossible.  Simultaneously, by allowing settlers to destroy Palestinian livelihoods, damaging water supplies to farms and terrorising the Palestinians, they will force Palestinians to leave, or at least stop them bringing up children.)  For a look at how fragmented the West Bank already is, see here.

Reaction to Miliband

Because Ed Miliband is Jewish, it has been much harder to accuse him of being motivated by anti-Jewish feelings, but variations of this are in evidence.

Newspaper headlines this morning range from “Israel reacts with fury” in the Times to the ludicrous “Miliband accused of putting Jews in UK in danger” in the Daily Mail.

Alex Gandler, on behalf of the Israeli embassy, said, “Operating a nuclear option of sanction between democratic countries, especially towards a country that has been at war for the past few years and is fighting a shared enemy in Iran, is something that is unheard of.

It definitely does not promote the relationship between Israel and the United Kingdom; that is for sure, and it does create an atmosphere for violence against Jews.”

Unionists, for historical reasons, tend to support Israel and to be unhappy with any criticism or action taken against Israel.  Jim Shannon, DUP, questioned how “alienating both Israel and the UK’s strongest ally, the US, could possibly serve the British national interest.”

Steve Aitken said, “Playing for narrow party politics rather than strategic vision – @10DowningStreet fallen at first foreign policy hurdle. Along with Chagos debacle @UKLabour has significantly undermined our global standing with our key allies – for what, chasing ‘green’ votes in marginals?”

Personally, I would suggest that a ‘strategic vision’ that involves turning a blind eye to war crimes or genocide is not something we should follow. In 1939 some UK politicians genuinely thought peace with Nazi Germany was the best ‘strategic’ option, and look how that turned out. The DUP/UUP suggestion that we side with the strong against the weak is a short-term strategy that we should not support.

Conclusion

The change in the UK’s policy towards Israel, set out eloquently by Ed Miliband and approved by Andy Burnham will be welcomed by those who have been protesting on our streets against the Starmer policy.  Hopefully, it is not too little and too late to save the two-state solution.

Realistically, Britain on its own will not be able to affect what Israel chooses to do, but if we can build alliances with France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Portugal, Poland and Iceland we might do some good.

Certainly, any argument that we side with the powerful against the weak out of self-interest must be resisted, the horror of Gaza and the West Bank must be brought to an end.