Bristol Apartheid-Free Zone’s statement on UK Government sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank
Yesterday the British government announced sanctions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This move is testimony to pressure from the Palestine solidarity movement. But it is the bare minimum.
The UK has long known these settlements breach international law. It should never have been trading with them in the first place. This move simply formalises a basic legal obligation, nothing more. And crucially, it does nothing about Britain’s wider support for Israel’s apartheid, occupation – and their genocide in Gaza
So why this token move now? Israel’s E1 plan would split the West Bank in two, all but closing off the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. That’s what moved Labour. Not the land grabs. The settler violence. Not genocide in Gaza. But the risk to the “two-state solution” that their support for Israel cynically hides behind.
We need more than this bare minimum. That means a full programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel as a whole – until the end of apartheid, occupation and genocide. Because we know the Israeli state encourages, supports, and profits from settlements. Without action against Israel as a whole, sanctions on settlement goods are unenforceable and ineffective. At home, it means an end to British military and intelligence cooperation, a full reversal of all arms licenses, and an end to the repression of the solidarity movement.
That will only happen if it’s forced – by organised, popular pressure. Three years ago, the British government’s condemnation of illegal settlements would not have seemed possible. But blanket support for Israel is now impossible to sustain. Palestinians’ refusal to submit, and those taking their message of resistance to our neighbours, our shops, our streets have made it so.
We need to keep organising this pressure. The US and Israel are urging Labour to back down on even this limited move. We need our collective voice to be heard louder.
Boycott all Israeli goods, not just settlement exports. Keep up the protests, direct action, and donations to Palestinians resisting on the ground. And in Bristol join your neighbours organising to deepen and spread Bristol Apartheid Free Zone’s boycott in your community.
The bare minimum is not enough. We will not stop until liberation.