MEND Statement: UK sanctions on Israeli settlers

2026 has been the most violent year on record in the occupied West Bank. By late August the UN had counted 79 Palestinians killed, 19 of them children, with settlers carrying out around six attacks a day. Masked men burn homes with families inside, torch mosques and destroy olive groves grown over generations. More than a hundred communities have been emptied in whole or in part since 2023. In roughly half of these attacks Israeli soldiers stand with the settlers or join them, and almost every perpetrator walks free.

This is what Britain’s new sanctions are supposed to answer. All it has effectively done is decided to stop importing wine, cosmetics and produce grown on stolen land. No Palestinian families will sleep safer for that. And no Israeli settlers will feel threatened by it.

Yet even as ministers announce it, Bloomberg reports that British diplomats have privately assured Washington the measures are “largely symbolic” and will not touch the wider trade and security relationship with Israel. PM Andy Burnham telephoned President Trump on Monday to tell him what was coming. There’s one message being briefed to the public, another to Israel’s closest ally.

Much of the media attention will be about Israel’s furious response. Smotrich is demanding Britain’s ambassador be expelled, Ben Gvir is proposing the Falklands be handed to Argentina, and Israels foreign minister Sa’ar taunts that Israel “has the tools” to act against Britain.

Israel’s ministers and many in the leadership of the Jewish Diaspora in the UK have already begun to call this move antisemitic. The US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee accused the UK government of ‘Jew Hate’. They use the charge as some kind of shield, so that no killing, no arson and no theft of land ever carries a cost, and they turn the same smear on British Muslims. Smotrich claims the UK has been conquered by radical Islam and former Prime Minsiter Liz Truss said the government is ‘an Islamist appeasing disgrace’

It’s obvious these sanctions are symbolic. If the UK government is serious, it needs to offer comprehensive sanctions on the whole Israeli state, just as it imposed on Russia; a full two-way arms embargo; and firm backing for the ICC and ICJ against every threat. Britain already recognises the State of Palestine and calls the occupation unlawful. It should now act as though it believes its own position, and treat the seizure of the West Bank as the crime it is.