Britain, France and Canada Ban Settlement Goods, Nine States Follow, and Israel Closes the British Consulate

On Tuesday the British foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, stood up in the House of Commons and announced that the United Kingdom would ban the import of all goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. France and Canada announced the same day that they would do likewise. By evening twelve countries had signed a joint statement calling for an immediate halt to settlement expansion and committing to restrict trade with the settlements, and Israel's foreign minister had ordered the British consulate in Jerusalem closed.

What the ban covers

According to Al Jazeera's account of the measures, the British regime prohibits goods from the settlements and extends to the services that sustain them: organisations, businesses and individuals providing construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate for settlement expansion, and advertising in Britain for property in settlements. It adds sanctions on settlers who have supported or incited violence against Palestinians and stops new export licences for weapons that would materially contribute to the occupation. Miliband was explicit that the regime targets illegal settlements and settlement expansion, not Israel: goods and services from Israel within its recognised borders are unaffected.

The economic weight is small and the point is not economic. Britain imported an estimated 38 million pounds of goods from the occupied territory in 2025, less than one per cent of a six-billion-pound trade with Israel. What changes is the legal status of settlement produce in three G7 markets, which shifts from labelled to prohibited, and the precedent that a group of Israel's traditional allies now treats the settlement enterprise as something to sanction rather than deplore.

Why now

Miliband gave the reason directly: Israel had crossed what he called a long-term red line by opening tenders for 1,200 homes in E1, the stretch of land between Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim whose development would cut the West Bank in two and sever East Jerusalem from it. Every British government since the plan was first drawn up has warned against building there. Israel's announcement that construction would proceed, in the middle of a regional war, was read in London, Paris and Ottawa as the end of the argument, and Miliband used the words ethnic cleansing to describe what he said was happening in the West Bank, language no British foreign secretary has used before.