UK Friends of Standing Together statement on British settlement sanctions
UK Friends of Standing Together (UKFoST) welcomes the announcement by the UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband of internationally co-ordinated sanctions against companies and individuals supporting West Bank settlement expansion, including a ban on the import of settlement produce, and condemns the countermeasures announced by Israel.
As Miliband rightly said, these measures are an overdue response to Israel’s policy of permanent occupation and denial of Palestinian statehood. The Israeli government has accelerated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the West Bank. Its war of annihilation and revenge in Gaza has killed over 70,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children.
As Miliband also pointed out, many Israelis reject state-backed settler terrorism in the West Bank. Standing Together is the largest grassroots anti-occupation movement of Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. With their allies, they have:
- joined Palestinians to protect the harvest and Palestinian lives against settler terror,
- held mass demonstrations against war with Iran, the occupation of Lebanon and Palestine, and discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel,
- and organised a get out the vote campaign to ensure citizens’ voices are heard in forthcoming elections, focusing particularly on the historically underrepresented Palestinian community, which makes up 20% of Israeli society.
UKFoST is proud to support them, both practically and politically. We have joined the umbrella initiative Protect the Harvest, working to non-violently resist settler terror. We fundraise to support Standing Together’s work. And we support UK government policies that strengthen the work of progressive movements like Standing Together on the ground.
Ending the occupation is not a priority for the Israeli political and media mainstream. That’s why the work of grassroots anti-occupation movements like Standing Together is needed. Changes in UK and international policy will help them to argue that the occupation is not only morally abhorrent, but economically irrational. That is why, as UK Friends of Standing Together, we support these measures.
Alon-Lee Green, former co-director of Standing Together, currently on leave as co-leader of the new political party A Place for Us All, said: “Britain is right: There is ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and the settlement enterprise is an enterprise of dispossession and of Jewish supremacy. The ban on purchasing products from the settlements, which was just announced in Britain and which distinguishes between the settlements and Israel, is a sane and logical step intended to apply pressure to evacuate the illegal settlements, and to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace. Britain is joined by France, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Sweden—all announcing a ban on trade with the settlements. An important step.”
We condemn the countermeasures announced by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, including entry bans and the closure of the British consulate-general in Jerusalem. An Israeli government genuinely interested in protecting its citizens would abandon a policy of endless war and occupation and negotiate a just peace with its neighbours. The countermeasures confirm that the Netanyahu government is more interested in meeting far-right demands for revenge and tit-for-tat than protecting its own citizens.
The list of MPs banned by Israel includes MPs who have worked with UKFoST, including two Parliamentary Friends of Standing Together, Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay. We welcome their support for a just peace and the safety of all who live in the land—Israeli or Palestinian. Any suggestion that such solidarity is ‘anti-Israeli’ is ludicrous and false.
We will continue our efforts to build direct links and practical solidarity with Standing Together and others seeking to build binational co-resistance on the ground.
For press enquiries, please email info@ukfost.co.uk.