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On Tuesday, over 130 legal experts sent a six-page letter to U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, stating that the newly-announced sanctions on Israel are insufficient to meet the U.K.’s obligations under international law.
On September 8, the U.K. government announced a set of sanctions banning imports from illegal settlements in the West Bank and penalizing companies and individuals providing services used for settlement expansion. The sanctions were announced in response to escalating settler violence and Israel’s steps to begin developing the E1 settlement, which would make a contiguous Palestinian West Bank impossible.
“We welcome [the sanctions] as a necessary corrective to a position long overdue for correction,” the lawyers and legal academics wrote in their letter to Burnham on Tuesday. But the announcement “falls far short” of the obligations put forward by a 2024 International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling, they said.
The letter elaborated that the sanctions on Israel, when compared to those adopted against Russia for its crimes in Ukraine, “are improperly narrow.” The sanctions against Russia target “the wider economic structures supporting [Russia’s] unlawful conduct,” not just those within Ukrainian territory – and this should be the same with the U.K.’s sanctions on Israel, they asserted. Sanctions must ensure that the U.K. is not propping up Israel’s occupation, beyond simply the illegal settlements.
In addition to calling for an expansion of the sanctions, the letter called for a “full and comprehensive arms embargo on Israel.”
When U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced sanctions on Israel last week, he made clear that support for Israel’s illegal settlements would face consequences.
In his speech, Miliband said that the British government “agrees” that Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank – primarily through the use of settler violence. Miliband cited the village of Al Mughayyir, which has been “encircled” by settlers and faces repeated attacks, killings, and intimidation.
But Miliband emphasized that the U.K. would continue to trade with Israel “precisely because we support the two state solution, including security and prosperity for Israel” – underscoring the limited scope of the sanctions and demands of the U.K. government.
Tuesday’s letter by legal experts noted that the U.K.’s measures against settler violence and settlement expansion have thus far been ineffective, with their effect “largely symbolic.”
Nonetheless, the Trump administration responded to Miliband’s announcement by threatening economic consequences on British businesses if the U.K. implements these sanctions on Israel.
Nimer Sultany, a law professor and one of the signatories of the letter, told Truthout:
“The elephant in the room is that the occupation is not a bug, it’s a feature. State policy – including land grab, ‘Judaization’ of East Jerusalem, and the military’s destruction of refugee camps in the West Bank – are the main drivers of Palestinian displacement, not the actions of a few violent settlers.”
“Israeli settlers are ministers in the government, serve as judges on Israel’s Supreme Court, and hold senior positions in the military. Israel’s political consensus opposes Palestinian statehood,” Sultany added. “Thus, ending Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, as determined by the International Court of Justice, requires immediate, effective and comprehensive actions by the UK government, not a piece-meal approach.”
The letter from the legal experts comes as Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem concluded in an extensive report released on Monday that Israel is implementing a “project of elimination” in the occupied West Bank.
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