Trade with the settlers banned: 12 countries oppose Netanyahu and the West Bank settlements

Brussels – Trade sanctions on goods and products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where settlers are responsible for “ethnic cleansing.” The international community has levelled harsh accusations against the State of Israel and its policies of illegal expansion into Palestinian territories, to which it is responding with restrictions on trade flows. It was the British Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, who announced the measures. Speaking at a hearing in the House of Commons, he revealed that a joint statement by 12 foreign ministers supports the anti-settlement measures. In addition to the United Kingdom, the signatories to the document are Canada, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. 

Italy has not signed the document, much to the disappointment of the opposition: “The Meloni government has once again confirmed its utter indifference and its complicit support for the crimes committed by Israel in the West Bank,” says MEP Danilo Della Valle (M5S/The Left), who describes the failure to join the international partners’ response as a cause for “shame”. 

The introduction of these restrictive measures comes on top of the sanctions already imposed unilaterally by the governments of Belgium and the Netherlands, bringing the number of EU Member States that have publicly condemned Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to over a third: “
We firmly oppose actions tantamount to the annexation of Palestinian land and forcible displacement of the Palestinian population,” reads the statement by the twelve ministers. It is the international community that is attempting to distance itself from the Israeli Prime Minister, for whom the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for his disproportionate response to the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023.