UK bans trade with West Bank settlements
The UK government said on Tuesday that it was banning trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing “settler terrorists” of carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in the territory. ”The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,” Miliband said. He said there had been “houses bulldozed, roads and public infrastructure destroyed, families displaced from their homes.
The centre-left Labour government has previously sanctioned some Israeli settlers and illegal outposts over violence against Palestinians and unauthorised development in the West Bank.
Israel seized the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East war, and the territory is expected to form the main part of a future Palestinian state. Under Netanyahu’s ultranationalist government, settlement construction in the West Bank has increased significantly. The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements illegal and an obstacle to peace. Netanyahu’s government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.