UK and 12 other nations ban imports from Israeli West Bank settlements over settler violence

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UK and 12 other nations ban imports from Israeli West Bank settlements over settler violence
UK, France, Canada and 10 others ban West Bank settlement imports; Israel shuts UK consulate, bars officials
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The UK, France, Canada and 10 other countries on Tuesday announced bans on imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, citing escalating settler violence and threats to a two-state solution. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham defended the move, stating that “settler terrorists” were carrying out “ethnic cleansing of Palestinians” and that the ban demonstrated British leadership.
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, a descendant of Jewish refugees, told Parliament that “ethnic cleansing” was being carried out by “terrorist settlers” in the West Bank, with Israeli government complicity. Israel responded by shutting the British consulate in Jerusalem and barring 12 British citizens, mostly lawmakers, from entering the country. Miliband called the retaliatory measures “deplorable” and “damaging.”
The joint action by 12 nations, including Denmark, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden, marked a rare coordinated Western rebuke of Israeli settlement policies. Eight Arab and Muslim-majority countries, including Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, welcomed the bans and urged further sanctions against settlement entities under international law.
Prominent Israelis, including a former prime minister, ex-army chief and the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, called the sanctions an “inevitable consequence” of government failures and rejected claims that the measures were antisemitic. “Sanctions [are being imposed] against Jewish terrorists, and not against the legitimacy of the state of Israel,” they said in a joint statement. Israeli media described the measures as a “full-blown storm” that caught officials off guard, with one outlet citing an “intelligence-diplomatic failure.”
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