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Dear Friends
A happy New Year to you.
We can wish for better in 2026; work is needed to achieve it. The media spotlight has shifted to Venezuela – to US law-breaking. It is important to keep challenging our Government to act for equal rights in Palestine, where people are still dying despite the Gaza ‘ceasefire’, and people are being driven from their homes in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.
May I ask you to do a bit of work?
Below is a letter we’d like you to send to your MP for transmission to Yvette Cooper.
Our Government has yet to respond to the conclusion of the International Court of Justice 18 months ago that the 1967 occupation is « unlawful ». As the letter sets out, Britain should ban trade in goods, services and investments with illegal Israeli settlements. All Israeli settlements are illegal, and on stolen land. OXFAM and 80 other organisations are mounting a campaign across Europe to ban settlement trade. The Britain Palestine Project is among the 80.
Feel free to modify or personalise the letter as you see fit.
But please do send it!
To do so, please click here and enter your postcode, whereupon the letter will be addressed to your MP. Fill in your name and address where indicated, press send and your work is done. For now…
There are many more things our Government should do to advance equal rights in Israel/Palestine. With enough sustained pressure, our Government can be made to do this one.
With very best wishes,
Sir Vincent Fean
Trustee, Britain Palestine Project
EMAIL YOUR MP
Israel/Palestine : ban UK trade in goods, services and investments with illegal Israeli settlements
I write to request that you kindly convey this letter to the Foreign Secretary, and let me have your own views.
British recognition of the state of Palestine is welcome as the beginning – a sign that at last our Government will uphold the Palestinian right to self-determination in deed, not just in word. But the follow-up to recognition has been wholly inadequate : ineffective words of condemnation in response to repeated Israeli criminal actions. Some examples, among many :
- preventing medical evacuations from Gaza and the entry of mobile hospitals/medicines/temporary housing into Gaza
- banning UNRWA and 37 internationally respected NGOs from working in Gaza
- de facto annexation in the West Bank (E1, and the creation of 19 other new settlements)
- encouraging rampant settler violence to force Palestinians from their homeland.
Israel shows contempt for international law, which Labour was elected to uphold. It is time to act. Our Government should institute a fundamental review of all aspects of Britain’s relationship with the Government of Israel : political, economic, military, visas etc. There is urgency : the Netanyahu Government faces elections by October, and is working daily to destroy Palestinian statehood.
The first step need not – indeed, must not -wait for that review. Belatedly, our Government should now confirm its view that the 1967 Israeli military occupation is illegal and ban trade with settlements – trade in goods and services, including investment. Settlements are illegal, so what they produce is illegal, on stolen land. The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of July 2024 found the occupation to be « unlawful ». Britain and other UN members must do nothing to « assist or maintain the occupation ». Permitting British trade with illegal settlements does just that, and has to stop. Our Government needs to uphold the ICJ Opinion.
The decision to recognise the sovereignty of the State of Palestine over its territory has to mean that Palestinian approval is needed for trade with any part of Palestinian territory.
Our Government has the means to hand – by statutory instrument under the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act (2018) – legislation already used to sanction Jewish supremacist Israeli Ministers Smotrich and Ben Gvir. Spain has banned trade in goods, and advertising of holidays in settlements. Ireland will ban trade in goods and is considering a ban on services, as advocated by the Irish Parliament. Our Government should give a lead to like-minded partners – including Spain, France, Norway, Ireland, Australia and Canada – by insisting that the trade ban be total, stopping services and investment as well as goods. Nothing less will do.