Britain must sanction Israel, not just its settlers
JVL Introduction
Clive Lewis MP, with two other British parliamentarians and an international delegation, tried to enter the West Bank as observers. They were prevented from doing so, as indeed others have been in the past.
Nonetheless, it marks a step change in Israeli impunity. In the past its leaders might have liked to keep a veneer of respectability, to pay lip-service to the world’s concerns, to placate its international critics when they are important representatives of other countries.
No more. It’s pretty fair to say Israel no longer gives a damn.
And, as Clive Lewis realises with no ifs and no buts, the problem is not the settlements and rogue settlers. It is Israel
He calls for clear lines to be drawn.
- Miliband’s sanctions package must be enacted in the broadest way possible. Now, not in six months time.
- All arms sales must be halted. The loopholes must be closed.
- Gaza needs help and it needs it now
And he stresses that “an expanded and comprehensive sanctions package would be fully in line with international law”.
Ed has talked the talk and we welcomed it with all our reservations. Now he must walk the walk.
This article was originally published by Al Jazeera on Fri 30 Oct 2026. Read the original here.
Britain must sanction Israel, not just its settlers
Israeli forces detained our parliamentary delegation and barred us from the West Bank. The violence we went to investigate is Israeli state policy.
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Britain should leave NATO and self described pro Palestinians who support pro imperialist party’s, like Labour and Greens need to do some reflection.
I hope Clive Lewis and other parliamentarians will also do their utmost to end Israel’s and individual Israelis’ legal impunity for war crimes and crimes against humanity. No government that wanted to stay on the right side of the rules of war would use its armed forces in the way that Israel has.
As the film NAZA shows, Israel is the first (hopefully the last) nation state to do almost all of its “fighting” against the enemy’s army NOT ON THE BATTLEFIELD but by blowing up the homes of each extended family when “Daddy” is assumed to be there (often wrongly) … and might be a Hamas fighter (or a shopkeeper) because he uses his phone quite often.
Similarly, no decent army blows up apartment blocks to stop more residents returning to them while KNOWING 80 civilians are already inside each of the buildings.
If Israel’s government or the IDF soldiers carrying out these crimes actually believed they’d be put on trial for these atrocities they wouldn’t have committed them.
It is good to hear a voice like Clive Lewis’s in the Labour Party given the internal and external pressure to weaken even the limited sanctions they have agreed. It is so important MPs on the side of justice speak out.
I have great admiration for Clive Lewis’s politics and have always wished he would rise. But perhaps he was always too independent!
Where are MPs such as Clive Lewis, MPs with guts and principles, in posts in the Burnham government? Where is anyone with any power who could be genuinely described as a left-winger? Glaring in their absence! Some not even in the HoC, having been suspended/expelled. Some would-be candidates in 2024 chopped one way or another shortly before the General Election. Will Burnham ever fulfil his ‘early promise’ or is he KS2………….?