UK government defends decision to ban trade with Israeli settlements

LONDON (AP) — British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said Wednesday he was disappointed with Israel’s response to the government's decision to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank , and rejected criticism from the U.K.'s chief rabbi.

Israel responded Tuesday by closing the British consulate in east Jerusalem and banning 11 lawmakers from the country.

“I regret what the Israeli government has announced, but I’m proud of what we did yesterday and it was the right thing to do,” Miliband told Sky News.

The U.K.'s tougher stance was followed by France and Canada's leaders saying they would take similar action to prevent expanding settlements and growing violence from making it impossible to establish a future Palestinian state.

Miliband said “settler terrorists” were carrying out “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians in the U.K. government's biggest pushback to Israel since it recognized Palestinian statehood a year ago. He said there had been “houses bulldozed, roads and public infrastructure destroyed, families displaced from their homes.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned the “despicable” move and said Israel would expel U.K. representatives from a joint military center monitoring the Gaza ceasefire and end U.K. training of the Palestinian Authority’s security forces in the West Bank. In addition, Israel barred entry to a dozen British lawmakers and other U.K. citizens whom Sa’ar said were “involved in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity.”

Ephraim Mirvis, the chief rabbi in the U.K., accused the government of “gesture politics” that would bolster “the very extremism they seek to target.”

Miliband, who is Jewish, said he respected Mirvis but disagreed with him.

“We all need to do more to tackle antisemitism, but I believe we can do that and stand up for British values,” he said.

The ban covers imports of all goods from the settlements and bars companies from providing services for the settlements, including financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising. It will take effect in up to nine months.

Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden have pledged to “support further action,” Miliband said. The Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway have either banned goods from settlements or are in the process of doing so, he said.

Miliband also tightened Britain’s embargo on weapons sales to Israel for use in Gaza to include arms “that materially contribute to the occupation” of Palestinian territories.

The economic impact is likely to be limited, since the settlements produce only a small amount of largely agricultural exports. But the move is a symbolic expression of displeasure with Israel by some of its closest allies, and it offers a new sign of the Israeli government’s growing isolation as a result of the Gaza war.

Under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's ultranationalist government, settlement construction in the West Bank — seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — has surged. Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

The international community overwhelmingly considers such construction to be illegal. Britain and other countries have voiced particular concern about the E1 settlement project approved by Israel, which would effectively cut the territory in two.

There have been marked increases in attacks by settlers on Palestinians, evictions from Palestinian towns, Israeli military operations and checkpoints that choke freedom of movement, as well as several Palestinian attacks on Israelis.