Why the U.K., Canada, and France Are Banning Trade With Israeli Settlements

Israel ordered the closure of the British consulate in East Jerusalem after the United Kingdom led a coordinated effort by 12 governments to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced the import ban on all goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday. “The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists,” he said during remarks at the House of Commons, referring to growing incidents of violence against Palestinians living in the West Bank. Eighty attacks carried out by Israeli settlers resulted in casualties or property damage between Aug. 11 and Aug. 24, according to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. More than 1,040 Palestinians have been injured in such incidents across 2026, it reports, and 79 Palestinians, including 19 children, have been killed by either Israeli military personnel or settlers so far this year. That adds to the escalating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank since the terror attacks led by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people and took more than ...